Fun fact: The saying work smarter, not harder is coming up on its 100th birthday. Coined in the 1930s by industrial engineer Allen Morgenstern, this simple, pithy directive is arguably more achievable today than ever before.
Thanks to generative AI chatbots such as OpenAIs ChatGPT, Googles Gemini, and Anthropics Claude, its never been easier to quickly create text, images, code, and more. Here are few practical ways you can leverage them to power up your productivity.
Create content
If you spend any time crafting marketing copy, drafting emails, outlining blog posts, or even brainstorming ideas, generative AI tools can save you an incredible amount of time.
Simply input a few keywords or a brief description, and watch as the AI generates initial drafts, outlines, or even complete pieces of content.
Sample prompts:
“Write a social media post announcing a new product feature for our accounting software. Keep it under 140 characters and include relevant hashtags.”
“Generate three different subject lines for an email marketing campaign promoting our summer sale.”
“Create an outline for a blog post titled ‘The Top 5 Benefits of Using AI for Project Management.
Summarize information
Drowning in readables? Generative AI can help you separate the wheat from the chaff far faster than even the speediest of human speed-readers.
You can condense lengthy documents, emails, reports, and more into concise summaries, without spending hours reading.
Sample prompts:
“Summarize the key findings of this market research report into a few paragraphs.”
“Extract the action items from this email thread.”
“Synthesize the customer feedback from this collection of online reviews into an overview of common themes.”
Generate ideas
If youre not quite ready to trust generative AI to reliably create content or summarize information for you, rest assured that it can act as a powerful brainstorming partner.
You can leverage AI to generate a wide range of concepts, muscle through writers block, or help you think of new ways to solve problems.
Sample prompts:
“Brainstorm 10 different marketing campaign ideas for a sustainable fashion brand targeting Gen Z.”
“Generate five unique names for a new coffee shop with a focus on local beans.”
“Come up with three different approaches to improve customer engagement on our website.”
Social media is terrible for teens mental healthor is it?
At the same time that rising rates of poor mental health among youth have been called a national crisis, and as parents and regulators call on social media companies to do more to keep young people safe online, a recent study by the Pew Research Center found that social mediawhile flawedcan sometimes be a positive influence on teenagers.
In a survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17, 74% said social media makes them feel more connected to their friends, and 63% said online platforms give them a place to show off their creativity.
Theres more good news: About half52%said social media makes them feel more accepted and supported through tough times. The bad news? That number is down from 67% in 2022.
The survey found that parents, more than teens themselves, are likely to see social media as a threat to the mental health of teen users. Nearly half (44%) of parents blamed social media as the single greatest negative influence on teens mental health, followed by technology and bullying.
Only 22% of teens agreed, citing a broader range of negative influences, including bullying and pressure to meet expectations. Everyone expects teens to have it all figured out by the time we get out of high school, one teenage girl said. Sometimes we dont know what we want to do. We are figuring life out too.
Still, social media ranked as the most negative influence according to both teens and parents. The overuse of social media in our society seems to be the main cause of depression among those in my age group, a teenage boy said. People seem to let themselves be affected by the opinions of people they dont know, and it wreaks havoc upon peoples states of mind.
Interestingly, teens seem more concerned about the effect of social media on their peers than on themselves. Roughly half (48%) said these sites have a mostly negative effect on teens their ageup from 32% in 2022while just 14% said they believe social media negatively affects them personally. At the same time, the number of teens who said they think social media has a positive effect on their peers dropped from 24% in 2022 to just 11% in the current survey.
As a result, many teens are trying to cut back: 44% said they have reduced the time they spend on social media and smartphones. That means more than half are still scrolling.
As Liverpool FC stars Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Virgil van Dijk celebrated winning the Premier League clubs 20th title on Sunday, you can bet that across the ocean thousands of American fans were ordering shirts with their names on the back.
There are 24 million Liverpool fans in the U.S. Many of them are spread across 67 different club supporters groups in 35 states. Americans buy more Liverpool kits and merchandise than any other international market. Sales were up 14% last season, and that coincides with more than 30 million U.S. fans watching the club on TV, up 42%. More than half of Liverpool’s partners are headquartered in the U.S., including Nike, Coca-Cola, Expedia, and UPS. The clubs success and ability to grow its business across the pond is a snapshot of how its overall approach to the business of global soccer has been directly tied to its ability to win on the field.
Back in 2010, Liverpool FC was struggling financially. It was a celebrated and historic sports icon, but bad business had put the club on the verge of collapse. Boston-based Fenway Sports Group bought the club for about $380 million. In May, Forbes estimated the clubs worth at roughly $5.7 billion.
Ben Latty, Liverpool FCs chief commercial officer, says it was about a decade ago that Liverpool really focused on specific areas of business growth. The way that we operate commercially, and from a revenue standpoint, is very different to American sports, says Latty, who joined the club in 2013.
The Premier League controls the broadcast rights, so Liverpool put its emphasis on as many other areas as possible that it could control: licensing, partnerships, and retail. There’s other models out there, yeah, pros and cons of those. But we believe that we’ve got the right model to control our own destiny, Latty says.
Heres how it works.
[Photo: Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside/Getty Images]
In-house ownership
In the NFL, most teams control their local broadcast rights. For retail, Fanatics designs, manufactures, and distributes the fan gear, and in many cases manages retail and ecommerce. Global football clubs operate much more independently from their leagues, so their ability to afford the best playersand therefore succeed on the fieldis largely driven by how well they run as a business.
Latty says for Liverpool, that means owning and operating many of the primary points of contact fans have with the club. All its merchandise design and even manufacturing, except for its game kit by Nike, is club owned.
We do everything ourselves, says Latty. That has pros and cons, but it allows us to control our own destinyscale up when we need to and, though we havent had to yet, scale back when we need to. Our retail business is really important as it relates to engaging with our fan base around the world, making sure we have the right products for the right regions, and the customer service that they expect.
[Photo: Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC/Getty Images]
Power in partnerships
A key cog in the Liverpool FC global brand machine is its ability to attract and work with big-name corporate partners. In the past 18 months, the club has signed 10 major deals, including with Google Pixel, UPS, Japan Airlines, Peloton, and Husqvarna. And more than half of its major partners are U.S.-based companies, including Nike, Coca-Cola, and Expedia.
Latty says it’s about balancing partners across different industries and product categories, and then working with them to create content that works best for them, the club, and its fans.
The key word is impact, he says. We’ve got to make sure that what we provide to them hits their objectives and becomes impactful. These are brands from every corner of the planet, and the impact is to a global audience through broadcast, digital, and social. . . . These partners are a really important piece for us to engage with our fan base in all of those global markets.
For example, as part of its partnership with Google Pixel, the club gave the smartphones to all its media and content staff to capture behind-the-scenes contentsome scripted, some not so much.
There was this amazing moment last season, when during a goal celebration Virgil van Dijk . . . noticed someone from the media team behind the goal. He took the phone and filmed the celebration. It wasnt planned at all, Latty says. You can say that’s luck, but you also make your own luck seeding the right people in the right places with the right technology.
A truly incredible angle of Darwin's winner and then celebrations shot by the skipper #AD | #TeamPixel pic.twitter.com/humiZ1djWl— Liverpool FC (@LFC) March 2, 2024
Content Club
Liverpool FC was the first Premier League club to reach more than 10 million followers on YouTube (now it has more than 11 million). Its content is a mix of behind-the-scenes, interviews, fan engagements, and game highlights. The club also produces all its branded content fr partners in-house.
Our content team is really at the center of working with our partnerships team to make sure that whatever we’re coming up with for our partners is going to resonate on our channels and give them the reach they signed up for, Latty says.
The club has more than 46.7 million Instagram followers, and last season it reported 1.5 billion engagements across its social channels, a 40% increase from the previous season, and tops in the Premier League. To put our level of engagements into context, when we won the Carabao Cup back in February 2024, we got 61.3 million social engagements, Latty says. When Real Madrid won La Liga, they got 48.9 million engagements, and when the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year, they registered 12.7 million engagements.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Liverpool Football Club (@liverpoolfc)
Latty says roughly 70% of the clubs content is watched by people who dont regularly follow soccer. He credits the quality of the content to how media and content is woven into the organization. I think some of the beauty of that is how closely theyre integrated into what we do as a football operations team so theyre there for the moments that matter, he says.
As Salah, van Dijk, and the rest of the team prepare to officially lift the Premier League title trophy later in May, the goal for Latty is to make sure the business side keeps fueling wins like this.
We’ve got to continue to protect what we’ve built up to now, he says. For me, the pressure is always to drive as much revenue as we can for the football club, so that we can do what we’re doing on the pitch now, and long may that continue.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
While national active housing inventory for sale at the end of March 2025 was still 20% below pre-pandemic March 2019 levels, on a year-over-year basis national active listings are up 29% between March 2024 and March 2025. This indicates that homebuyers have gained some leverage in many parts of the country over the past year.
One of the biggest year-over-year increases is happening in Californiawhere active inventory for sale is up 50% year-over-year.
Despite the 50% year-over-year jump in active California housing inventory for saleincluding both single-family homes and condosCalifornia at the end of March 2025 still had 20% fewer homes for sale than it did in pre-pandemic March 2019.
But more California housing markets are climbing out of that inventory deficit. And if the current trajectory holds, California could soon be out of its pandemic housing boom era inventory hole.
Among Californias 36 major counties with at least 100,000 residents, nine have more active housing inventory for sale in March 2025 compared to pre-pandemic March 2019. The other 27 major California counties still have inventory below pre-pandemic March 2019 levels.
!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}();
In housing markets where active inventory for sale rises significantly, homebuyers are gaining leverage. In housing markets where active inventory for sale has shot up above pre-pandemic 2019 levels, homebuyers have gained considerable leverage relative to past years.
Homebuyers in San Francisco (in particular San Francisco propers condo market) had a lot more leverage recently than homebuyers in, say, Orange County.
If youve followed Apple for any length of time, youve no doubt come across the notion that the company doesnt rush into adopting cutting-edge technology; instead, it waits until it can do it right.
We dont feel an impatience to be first, CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg in 2017. Our thing is to be the best and to give the user something that really makes a difference in their lives.
But Im starting to wonder if something else is going on. Sure, a lot of Apples Android competitors have sometimes been accused of throwing features at the wall. These days, though, I think their hardware is often just markedly betterand it hits the market earlier.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/multicore_logo.jpg","headline":"Multicore","description":"Multicore is about technology hardware and design. It's written from Tokyo by Sam Byford. To learn more visit multicore.blog","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.multicore.blog","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
There have certainly been times when Apple has waited and knocked it out of the park with its own implementation of a new component or product category. Touch ID was far faster and more reliable than any previous fingerprint reader. Apple Pay was a comprehensive use case for Near Field Communication that worked seamlessly compared with prior solutions. The Apple Watch might not have been perfect at launch, but it was (and is) light years ahead of other smartwatches.
Other examples fall into a gray area. Take wireless charging. Having to create another device you have to plug into the wall is actually, for most situations, more complicated, Apple senior VP Phil Schiller said in 2012. Five years later, the iPhone X and 8 launched with Qi charging that worked the exact same way, without any particular special sauce. Today, Apple has by far the most convenient setup with its MagSafe ecosystem, and it has set the bar for the new Qi2 standard. But that doesnt change the fact that it was years behind on the basic functionality.
More recently, there have been cases in which Apple is simply late. AI is an obvious example, but camera hardware is more pertinent.
For many years, Apple could and did lay claim to having the best phone camera around. But its impossible to make that case today if you have any experience with the top Android phones on the market. Some of that comes down to software tuning, but hardware plays an equally big role.
In fall 2023, Apple introduced its tetraprism camera to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, upping the focal length from 3x to 5x. Apple presented this as a new approach to lens design, and in some ways it is; it doesnt have the characteristic rectangular shape of periscope telephoto lenses on other Android phones, although the principle is the same.
But Apple couldnt claim any major performance breakthrough, except over itself. Take the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, released at the start of that year; its 5x telephoto lens was paired with a bigger sensor, and the difference in clarity was stark. Apple had been rumored to be lining up suppliers for periscope telephoto cameras since 2020, and even had filed patents on the technology in 2016, but it doesnt seem to have gained anything by waiting so long to bring the concept to market. Huawei and Oppo, meanwhile, were shipping impressive periscope cameras back in 2019.
It was a similar situation with 48-megapixel image sensors, the main new feature on the iPhone 14 Pro camera in 2022. Again, its not clear what took Apple so long to introduce thisthe first 48-megapixel sensors made their way to Android phones in early 2019, and they worked the exact same way by combining four pixels into one for better 12-megapixel shots.
In recent years, the state of the art in Android phones has been 1-inch image sensors, the same size youll find in enthusiast compact cameras like Sonys RX100 line. Once youve used one, its hard to go back; these phones take photos that just dont look like they came from a phone. The technology is mature, but at least from the outside, Apple does not seem all that interested in keeping up.
Its possible that Apples scale makes it harder for the company to secure cutting-edge components in the quantities it requires for each launch. The first tetraprism lens was only available on the iPhone 15 Pro Max before making it to the smaller iPhone 16 Pro the following year, for example. Android OEMs ship so many more individual models that its easier for them to reserve high-end parts for certain flagships.
Ive been thinking about this dynamic lately when reading reports of Apples belated entry into folding phones, a category Samsung kicked off in 2019albeit with some well-publicized hiccups. Last month Bloombergs Mark Gurman reported that Apple plans to use technologies from a slimmer iPhone this year in a folding phone that could land as early as 2026.
Im not sure this checks out. According to Gurman, the 2025 iPhone Air will be around 2 millimeters thinner than current models; the iPhone 16 Pro is 8.3 millimeters thick. The thinnest folding phone out there today is Oppos Find N5, which has a near-invisible crease in its display and is just 4.2 millimeters thick when unfolded. At this point, what could Apple really be learning by producing a phone closer in thickness to the iPhone 16 Pro?
The Find N5 isnt just impressive hardwareits a phone that makes you wonder how much thinner it could even be. Make it a fifth of a millimeter thicker, and Im not sure it would still fit its USB-C port. (Gurman does note that Apple also plans to investigate the possibility of port-free iPhones.)
But more to the point, the Find N5 is already on the market. At this point, I would not expect Apples first attempt at a folding phone to break new ground on a technical level. Six years on from the original Galaxy Fold, it seems unlikely that foldable hardware is going to get meaningfully better than whats out there right now.
Apples software is broadly excellent and its ecosystem is unparalleled, which is why I continue to buy iPhones myself. The Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch really are the best products available in their given categories, so Ill always want a phone that works well with them.
But something is going on with the iPhone. Its simply no longer the case that Android companies cant compete on hardware or design. If Appleever wants to dazzle the world with mobile devices againor at least hardware obsessives like methe window may be closing.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/multicore_logo.jpg","headline":"Multicore","description":"Multicore is about technology hardware and design. It's written from Tokyo by Sam Byford. To learn more visit multicore.blog","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.multicore.blog","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
If the tariff-triggered drop in your 401(k) balance has got you sobbing into a pint of Ben & Jerrys, youre not alone. U.S. and global markets have yo-yoed in reaction to the current administrations inexplicable tariff wars. And since this market downturn is a direct result of American foreign economic policy, we may not be able to just wait for a recovery in the next few months (or years).
While theres no promise of fiscal unicorns and rainbows at the other end of this, economic history may offer some guidance.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariffs
None of us has ever lived through a tariff-triggered market crash, which is part of the reason why were all chewing our fingernails. But just because this is a new worry for modern investors doesnt mean our current situation is unprecedented. America has been through a tariff trade war before, thanks to the work of the improbably named Utah Senator Reed Smoot and Oregon Representative Willis Hawleytwo men without a single first name between them.
You may only remember the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 as part of the mind-numbing lecture Ferris Bueller missed on his day off, but this act raised import duties in an attempt to protect American farmers and businesses. Unfortunately, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs prompted retaliatory tariffs, which further entrenched the financial crisis known as the Great Depression.
Heres why the history with Messrs Smoot and Hawley is important: it gives us a precedent to look to. Any financial adviser worth their salt will tell you that past performance is no guarantee of future returnsbut understanding how markets have reacted in the past can offer some perspective on how markets may react in the future.
Whats different about this market volatility
The current financial turbulence stems from the presidents tariffs rather than a market crash like the 2008 housing bubble collapse. Thats important because we know how to plan for the worst-case scenario of a market crash.
While anything but fun, market crashes are relatively common and repeat on a somewhat predictable seven-to-ten-year patternfollowed by an average recovery time of 1.4 years.
Since our current heartburn-inducing market ride stems from Americas global retaliatory trade war, we cant necessarily count on the natural rebound that has occurred after every other destabilizing market event in recent memory. Any countries angry about Americas tariffs could make financial or policy changes that will continue to affect the U.S. market for years to come. There is simply no way of knowing what long-term effects there will be on our investments.
Let tariff history be your guide
Even though none of us can personally remember a tariff trade war, we can learn from the devastating effects of Smoot and Hawley teaming up, bleach and ammonia style, to impose massive tariffs.
Looking back to see how other countries reacted to Americas isolationist financial and foreign policy in the 1930s and how the market responded to the subsequent tariffs being flung back and forth across borders like a game of hot potato, we can make plans and predictions based on the historical worst-case scenario.
Specifically, Smoot and Hawley showed us that tariffs often lead to retaliatory tariffs, which can have a negative impact on the market. Even though there is no way of knowing what will happen, its probably a good idea for investors to buckle up for a bumpy ride.
Best practices for surviving Trumps tariffs
You can get to the other side of this economic nightmare if you keep a cool head and follow these strategies:
Remember that the market will eventually recover
For anyone who is 10 or more years out from retirement, you can feel confident that things will improve. Unless were in a dogs and cats living togethermass hysteria! type of extinction-level event, consider ignoring your 401(k) balance for a little while.
Your investments will do better if you back slowly away from your portfolio and let the market recover.
Forewarned is forearmed
Just because the market will return to some semblance of normalcy without any effort on your part doesnt mean you should do nothing.
Now is the time to shore up your finances by paying off high-interest debt, setting aside money into an emergency fund, finding ways to lower your expenses, and starting some secondary income streams in case of job loss or involuntary retirement.
All of these actions will help your finances whether were in for a long stretch of tariff-induced market nastiness or things are about to come up roses.
Invest conservatively as you get closer to retirement
Your asset allocation is supposed to get less risky as you approach retirement, since that will protect your principal in case of a market downturn at the wrong time. If youre planning to retire in the next few years, you can make sure any new contributions you make to your retirement accounts are invested in low-risk-lower-return assets, like bonds, treasury funds, CDs, or other cash equivalents.
While these investments arent going to grow like the market normally would, the market also may not grow like it normally would. Stashing your contributions into these kinds of investments will offer you more peace of mind that the money will be waiting for your retirement.
You still have time for market recovery
Once youre no longer in the flush of youth, you may assume you dont have the luxury of investing for the long-term. Its not like a 60-year-old can afford to wait out the market like a 30-year-old can.
Except, you can invest like you have decades ahead of you. Because you do!
Even while you approach retirement and during your retirement, you will keep a portion of your portfolio invested for the long haul. When you retire, you dont need all of your money right away. Youll keep a significant chunk invested for a longer time horizon, which helps ensure that your money will last your entire life.
How to respond if youre already retired
By far, retirees are the most vulnerable to a protracted market plunge. Going back t work or waiting out the market weirdness are generally off the table for retirees, so it can feel like there are no good choices.
But that doesnt mean retirees are helpless in the face of larger economic forces. As with current workers and near-retirees, retirees can make plans now for the worst-case scenario. This might include:
Reducing expenses: This is easier said than done, considering the price of eggs and everything else, but start thinking about ways to downsize your costs.
Selling items: If you have a lifetimes worth of home goods, collectibles, or Precious Moments figurines sitting around, you may want to start selling some off. This could be a good way to increase your retirement income without having to take money from your investments.
Considering a reverse mortgage: Since your home is likely your most valuable asset, a reverse mortgage could be a decent way to access cash from something other than your investments.
Dont panicplan
Panic is the leading cause of selling at the markets low point. Instead of selling off your investments to staunch the flow of tariff-induced anxiety, make a plan instead.
If you assume the market may be bumpy for the foreseeable future, how will that change your financial decisions?
Making investment choices based on that assumption will serve you well no matter what happens. In the best-case scenario, things will recover sooner than expected and this will be a footnote in your investing career. But even in the worst-case scenario, planning for volatility will help you make more rational decisionsand protect you from making your paper losses real by getting out of the market.
It may be a bit of a grim sounding win-win, but its a heck of a lot better than crying into a pint of Chunky Monkey.
What is happinessand who gets to be happy?
Since 2012, the World Happiness Report has measured and compared data from 167 countries. The United States currently ranks 24th, between the U.K. and Belizeits lowest position since the report was first issued. But the 2025 edition, released on March 20, the U.N.s annual International Day of Happiness, starts off not with numbers, but with Shakespeare.
In this years issue, we focus on the impact of caring and sharing on peoples happiness, the authors explain. Like mercy in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice, caring is twice-blessedit blesses those who give and those who receive.
Shakespeares plays offer many reflections on happiness itself. They are a record of how people in early modern England experienced and thought about joy and satisfaction, and they offer a complex look at just how happiness, like mercy, lives in relationships and the caring exchanges between people.
Contrary to how we might think about happiness in our everyday lives, it is more than the surge of positive feelings after a great meal, or a workout, or even a great date. The experience of emotions is grounded in both the body and the mind, influenced by human physiology and culture in ways that change depending on time and place. What makes a person happy, therefore, depends on who that person is, as well as where and when they belongor dont belong.
Happiness has a history. I study emotions and early modern literature, so I spend a lot of my time thinking about what Shakespeare has to say about what makes people happy, in his own time and in our own. And also, of course, what makes people unhappy.
From fortune to joy
Shakespeares birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, England [Photo: Tony Hisgett/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons]
Happiness derives from the Old Norse word hap, which meant fortune or luck, as historians Phil Withington and Darrin McMahon explain. This earlier sense is found throughout Shakespeares works. Today, it survives in the modern word happenstance and the expression that something is a happy accident.
But in modern English usage, happy as fortunate has been almost entirely replaced by a notion of happiness as joy, or the more long-term sense of life satisfaction called well-being. The term well-being, in fact, was introduced into English from the Italian benessere around the time of Shakespeares birth.
The word and the concept of happiness were transforming during Shakespeares lifetime, and his use of the word in his plays mingles both senses: fortunate and joyful. That transitional ambiguity emphasizes happinesss origins in ideas about luck and fate, and it reminds readers and playgoers that happiness is a contingent, fragile thingsomething not just individuals but societies need to carefully cultivate and support.
Joanna Vanderham as Desdemona and Hugh Quarshie as Othello in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Othello directed by Iqbal Khan at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon [Photo: robbie jack/Corbis via Getty Images]
For instance, early in Othello, the Venetian senator Brabantio describes his daughter Desdemona as tender, fair, and happy / So opposite to marriage that she shunned / The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation. Before she elopes with Othello she is happy in the sense of fortunate, due to her privileged position on the marriage market.
Later in the same play, though, Othello reunites with his new wife in Cyprus and describes his feelings of joy using this same term:
. . . If it were now to die,Twere now to be most happy, for I fearMy soul hath her content so absoluteThat not another comfort like to thisSucceeds in unknown fate.
Desdemona responds,
The heavens forbidBut that our loves and comforts should increaseEven as our days do grow!
They both understand happy to mean not just lucky, but content and comfortable, a more modern understanding. But they also recognize that their comforts depend on the heavens, and that happiness is enabled by being fortunate.
Othello is a tragedy, so in the end, the couple will not prove happy in either sense. The foreign general is tricked into believing his young wife has been unfaithful. He murders her, then takes his own life.
The seeds of jealousy are planted and expertly exploited by Othellos subordinate, Iago, who catalyzes the racial prejudice and misogyny underlying Venetian values to enact his sinister and cruel revenge.
James Earl Jones playing the title role and Jill Clayburgh as Desdemona in a 1971 production of Othello [Photo: Kathleen Ballard/Los Angeles Times/UCLA Library via Wikimedia Commons]
Happy insiders and outsiders
Othello sheds light on happinesss history, but also on its politics.
While happiness is often upheld as a common good, it is also dependent on cultural forces that make it harder for some individuals to experience. Shared cultural fantasies about happiness tend to create what theorist Sara Ahmed calls affect aliens: individuals who, by nature of who they are and how they are treated, experience a disconnect between what their culture conditions them to think should make them happy and their disappointment or exclusion from those positive feelings. Othello, for example, rightly worries that he is somehow foreign to the domestic happiness Desdemona describes, excluded from the joy of Venetian marriage. It turns out he is right.
Because Othello is foreign and Black and Desdemona is Venetian and white, their marriage does not conform to their societys expectations for happiness, and that makes them vulnerable to Iagos deceit.
Similarly, The Merchant of Venice examines the potential for happiness to include or exclude, to build or break communities. Take the quote about mercy that opens the World Happiness Report.
The phrase appears in a famous courtroom scene, as Portia attempts to persuade a Jewish lender, Shylock, to take pity on Antonio, a Christian man who cannot pay his debts. In their contract, Shylock has stipulated that if Antonio defaults on the loan, the fee will be a pound of flesh.
The quality of mercy is not strained, Portia lectures him; it is twice-blessed, benefiting both giver and receiver.
Its a powerful attempt to save Antonios life. But it is also hypocritical: Those cultural norms of caring and mercy seem to apply only to other Christians in the play, and not the Jewish people living alongside them in Venice. In that same scene, Shylock reminds his audience that Antonio and the other Venetians in the room have spit on him and called him a dog. He famously asks why Jewish Venetians are not treated as equal human beings: If you prick us, do we not bleed?
Shakespeares plays repeatedly make the point that the unjust distribution of rights and care among various social groupsChristians and Jews, men and women, citizens and foreignerschallenges the happy effects of benevolence.
Those social factors are sometimes overlooked in cultures like the U.S., where contemporary notions of happiness are marketed by wellness gurus, influencers and cosmetic companies. Shakespeares plays reveal both how happiness is built through communities of care and how it can be weaponized to destroy individuals and the fabric of the community.
There are obvious victims of prejudice and abuse in Shakespeares plays, but he does not just emphasize their individual tragedies. Instead, the plays record how certain values that promote inequality poison relationships that could otherwise support happy networks of family and friends.
Henry Irving as Shylock in a late 19th-century performance of The Merchant of Venice [Photo: Lock & Whitfield/Folger Shakespeare Library vi Wikimedia Commons]
Systems of support
Pretty much all objective research points to the fact that long-term happiness depends on community, connections and social support: having systems in place to weather what life throws at us.
And according to both the World Happiness Report and Shakespeare, contentment isnt just about the actual support you receive but your expectations about peoples willingness to help you. Societies with high levels of trust, like Finland and the Netherlands, tend to be happierand to have more evenly distributed levels of happiness in their populations.
Shakespeares plays offer blueprints for trust in happy communities. They also offer warnings about the costs of cultural fantasies about happiness that make it more possible for some, but not for all.
Cora Fox is an associate professor of English and health humanities at Arizona State University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A lot has been written about gratitude over the past two decades and how we ought to be feeling it. There is advice for journaling and a plethora of purchasing options for gratitude notebooks and diaries. And research has consistently pointed to the health and relationship benefits of the fairly simple and cost-effective practice of cultivating gratitude.
Yet, Americans are living in a very stressful time, worried about their financial situation and the current political upheaval.
How then do we practice gratitude during such times?
I am a social psychologist who runs the Positive Emotion and Social Behavior Lab at Gonzaga University. I teach courses focused on resilience and human flourishing. I have researched and taught about gratitude for 18 years.
At the best of times, awareness of the positive may require more effort than noticing the negative, let alone in times of heightened distress. There are, however, two simple ways to work on this.
Gratitude doesnt always come easily
Generally, negative information captures attention more readily than the positive. This disparity is so potent that its called the negativity bias. Researchers argue that this is an evolutionary adaptation: Being vigilant for lifes harms was essential for survival.
Yet, this means that noticing the kindnesses of others or the beauty the world has to offer may go unnoticed or forgotten by the end of the day. That is to our detriment.
Gratitude is experienced as a positive emotion. It results from noticing that othersincluding friends and family certainly, but also strangers, a higher power or the planethave provided assistance or given something of value such as friendship or financial support. By definition, gratitude is focused on others care or on entities outside of oneself. It is not about ones own accomplishments or luck.
When we feel gratitude toward something or someone, it can increase well-being and happiness and relationship satisfaction, as well as lower depression.
Thus, it may assist in counteracting the negativity bias by helping us find and remember the good that others are doing for us every daythe good that we may lose sight of in the best of times, let alone in times when Americans are deeply stressed.
How to practice gratitude
Research has shown that some people are naturally more grateful than others.
But its also clear that gratitude can be cultivated through practice. People can improve their ability to notice and feel this positive emotion.
One way to do this is to try a gratitude journal. Or, if the idea of journaling is daunting or annoying, perhaps call it a daily list instead. If you have given this a try and dislike it, skip to the second method below.
Gratitude lists are designed to create a habit in which you scan your day looking for the positive outcomes that others have brought into your life, no matter how small. Writing down several experiences each day that went well because of others may make these positive events more visible to you and more memorable by the end of the daythus, boosting gratitude and its accompanying benefits.
While the negative newsThe stock market is down again! How are tariffs going to affect my financial security?is clearly drawing attention, a gratitude list is meant to help highlight the positive so that it doesnt go overlooked.
The negative doesnt need help gaining attention, but the positive might.
A second method for practicing gratitude is expressing that gratitude to others. This can look like writing a letter of gratitude and delivering it to someone who has made a positive impact in your life.
When my students do this exercise, it often results in touching interactions. For instance, my college students often write to high school mentors, and those adults are regularly moved to tears to learn of the positive impact they had. Expressing gratitude in work settings can boost employees sense of social worth.
In a world that may currently feel bleak, a letter of gratitude may not only help the writer recognize the good of others but also let others know that they are making a beautiful difference in the world.
Monica Y. Bartlett is a professor of psychology at Gonzaga University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Greg Walton, PhD, is the co-director of the Dweck-Walton Lab and a professor of psychology at Stanford University. Dr. Waltons research is supported by many foundations, including Character Lab, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He has been covered in major media outlets including The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times.
Whats the big idea?
Stanford psychologist Greg Walton reveals how small psychological shiftsknown as wise interventionscan create profound change in our lives. Through vivid storytelling and cutting-edge research, he shows how simple reframes can build trust, strengthen relationships, and unlock potential. From a teachers encouraging words to a brief moment of self-reflection before conflict, these subtle shifts can shape our futures in powerful ways. Ordinary Magic is a compelling guide to harnessing everyday moments for extraordinary impact.
Below, Greg shares five key insights from his new book, Ordinary Magic: The Science of How We Can Achieve Big Change with Small Acts. Listen to the audio versionread by Greg himselfin the Next Big Idea App.
1. Little things can make a big difference.
Ordinary Magic is about change, and how to create it.
Sometimes, problems in our lives can seem fixed, like theres nothing you could do to make things better. Persistent struggles in school. Conflict in a relationship. Self-doubt. But we dont just have to wish things were better.
It starts with noticing our little thoughts and feelingswhat I call surfacingand then creating the right space to address them.
Say youre married. Its a happy marriage, but you and your partner have a persistent conflict. Will you have the right space to think through your conflict? One study found that seven minutes answering three reflection questions every four months for a year made conflict less distressing for couples, and helped stabilize marriages. Twenty-one minutes to save a marriage.
Or say youre a teacher. You work hard for your students, giving them feedback so they can improve. But many of your students dont take up that opportunity. Why? Another study found that just 17 words increased the rate at which 7th graders took up their teachers feedback to improve their work for a higher gradeand increased their trust in teachers over the rest of the school year.
Change like this can feel magical. But thisthis is ordinary magic. These solutions require no special degree. Theyre the kind of thing all of us can learn from, and put to work in our own lives. Everyone can be an ordinary magician. And all of us benefit from ordinary magicians around us.
What this magic requires is a deeper understanding of ourselvesunderstanding the icky questions that pop up as we travel through life. And learning how, individually and together, we can answer these questions well.
2. Big problems can start small.
A little thought, a shadow of doubt. Often, it starts with a question. But then things spiral out of control.
Suppose you wonder, Does my partner disrespect me?
Left to their devices, questions like this drive us down. If you think a fight means your partner doesnt love you, then you might hold back and be less forgiving next time. If theyre late, again, you might feel confirmed in their lack of respect. Then you withdraw or lash out. That undermines a relationship.
Left to their devices, questions like this drive us down.
Or say youre the first in your family to go to college. You wonder, Do people like me belong in college? Then youre excluded from a social outing. A professor says something unkind. You think, Maybe its truemaybe people like me dont belong here. You stop going to office hours, stop asking questions in class, skip that welcome event for a student group. Fast-forward and, six months later, you dont have close friends on campus. No mentor to guide your growth. Youre thinking about dropping out.
Negative questions make us spiral down. They make themselves true. Then, they put our relationships, our achievements, and our health at risk.
3. Change starts when we understand the questions we face, or another person faces.
Let me share an example: When our kids were little, we took them to and from a campus daycare by bike. So, at the end of a long day, wed bike home, the kids on tiny 12-inch wheels. Sometimes, theyd stop two blocks from home and 20 minutes past dinner time. Theyd sit on the curb and wail, Im tired!
I thought of research by my good friend Veronika Job. Veronika showed that sometimes people take little cues of tiredness as a reason to stop, to pull back from their efforts, even on things they care about. Its like we have range anxietyyou feel youre running out when you work hard on something, long before you reach any actual limit. Then you hold back, even on something you care about.
So, I decided to reframe the meaning of feeling tired to them. I took to saying, Its when youre tired and you keep going that you get stronger.
It didnt always work. But I think it helped.
A little later, our daughter Lucy was trying to bike up a steep and winding path on our way home. Wed taken to bringing chalk to mark how far shed gotten. One time, Lucy not only beat her previous record but crushed it. As Oliver and I whooped and cheered, Lucy said, You know how I did it? When I wanted to stop, I kept going.
Isnt that lovely?
In that story, I offered Lucy a new way to think about her effortsthat tiredness need not be a reason to stop. That she could keep going. That tiredness might even be an opportunityto get stronger. It freed Lucy to succeed. She used that way of thinking to achieve her goal. As I write in the book, Thinking is for becoming.
This kind of change is quiet, not loud. But it frees us to spiral up. A small initial insight, a small change in direction, can lead us to vast new lands.
4. The icky questions we ask are reasonable, but they arent necessarily true.
The questions come from the context were in. Of course, the first-gen college student wonders if people like her belong in college. Her family literally hasnt belonged in college before. That reasonableness is important. First, it means youre not alone. When youre asking a question like Do I belong?, Can I do it?, or Am I inadequate? theres nothing wrong with you. Youre not irrational or disordered or weird. Youre normal. Youre responding to the world as it is. But even as that question is reasonable, it neednt be true. Its answers youre looking for.
Because questions like these are reasonable, we can learn to predict when people will ask them. When we see these questions clearly, we can learn to address them with grace and dignity, which can transform our lives.
Thats an hour to change a life.
In one study, my colleagues and I developed a 60-minute session early in college to help new students address the question, Do people like me belong in college? Students of color are often underrepresented in college, and sometimes, theyre represented as less able and less deserving. So, that question is most pressing for them.
The exercise we developed shared stories from older students, who showed that almost everyone worries at first if they belong in college. Students reflected on their belonging worries, why theyre normal, and how they can improve with time.
That improved African American students achievement through the next three years of college. A decade later, they reported being more satisfied in their lives, more successful in their careers, and taking on more leadership roles in their communities. Thats an hour to change a life.
That didnt happen because students just remembered that experience. At the end of college, students couldnt even remember it clearly. And they didnt credit any of their success to it. Instead, addressing a persistent question about belonginga reasonable question that comes from the history of exclusion in educationfreed students to build friendships and mentor relationships, and those supports that helped them succeed.
5. This is work we do together.
The most toxic questions are about who you are and who you can become.
In the most difficult circumstances, when people look at you and all they see is something horrible, there must be space to tell your own story, a chance to tell that story in a way that other people can hear, a way to make that story real together.
For more than a decade, Ive worked with leaders in the Oakland Unified School District to support students returning to school from juvenile detention. This circumstance poses terrible questions to both students and teachers. These students have been told, more or less unambiguously, that they do not belong here and are not wanted here. And its easy for teachers to wonder, Will this student care? Will they try? Or will they just cause trouble?
The most toxic questions are about who you are and who you can become.
So, we created a platform for young people, a way for them to introduce themselves to an educator of their choiceto share their values in school, such as being a good role model for a younger sibling, their goals, and the challenges they face. We find that young people use this platform to express, essentially, Im a good kid, and I want to succeed, but I need help. Can you help me? Then, we present this information to the educator the child selected. We emphasize that all kids need support from adults. This child has chosen you. Heres what they would like you to know about them. Please help. And then we say, Thank you for your work.
We find this letter opens the hearts of educators to justice-involved youth. It helps them see that this is a kida kid who wants to succeed. They respond with support. In a first trial, this approach reduced the rate of student recidivism to juvenile detention by 40 percentage points, from 69 percent to 29 percent, in the following school term. Its the most powerful way I know to remedy mistrust in school.
This is the change we need to help us achieve what we want to achieve, to do what we want to do, and to become who we want to be. Its a way to help other people in their journeys, too. In the process, we can make our society a little healthier, a little more together, and a little kinder.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
The 2025 Kentucky Derby is horse racing’s most exclusive starting gate. Twenty horses will post at Churchill Downs on May 3an elite field, even by exclusivity’s standards. Y Combinator admits less than 3% of startups. Fewer than 1% of those who apply to NASA become astronauts. Google famously hires less than 0.2% of applicants.
Yet these standards look almost lax compared to the 0.11% of North American thoroughbreds that make the Kentucky Derby each year, as only 20 of the 17,146 thoroughbred foals eligible earn the honor of participating in the race.
Here’s how the fortunate 20 get to Churchill Downs.
A sophisticated global qualification system
The Kentucky Derby is limited to 3-year-old thoroughbreds that qualify through a points system called the “Road to the Kentucky Derby.” This system, implemented in 2013, transformed horse racing’s premier event from an earnings-based qualification into a data-driven meritocracy.
There are three distinct roads to the Kentucky Derby. Internationally, the European-Middle East Road offers one invitation through seven qualifying races across England, Ireland, UAE, and France, while the Japan Road awards one invitation through four races. The North American Road fills the remaining 18 starting spots through a 36-race gauntlet divided into two phases. The Prep Season (SeptemberFebruary) features 20 races with modest point awards, while the high-stakes 16-race Championship Series (FebruaryApril) cranks up the pressure with escalating rewards.
But not all points are created equal.
The brilliance of this system lies in its gamified structure. Early prep races award a conservative 10-5-3-2-1 distribution among the top five finishers, while Championship Series races raise the stakes dramatically to a 50-25-15-10-5 split, then to a game-changing 100-50-25-15-10 for the final major preps. In Silicon Valley terms, these would be “rising stakes rounds,” forcing trainers to make strategic decisions about where and when to position their contenders for maximum return.
For 2025, Churchill Downs fine-tuned its algorithm, adding the Virginia Derby as a qualifying race and implementing dynamic point scaling that reduces awards for smaller fieldsan anti-gaming mechanism to ensure equitable competition so there are no shortcuts to the derby.
The result is a ruthlessly efficient funnel that winnows 17,146 eligible thoroughbreds down to just 20 elite qualifiersan acceptance rate that makes Harvard or MIT look like open enrollment.
Closing the economic divide
While most Kentucky Derby contenders emerge from million-dollar yearling sales and the larger stables of trainers like Bob Baffertwhose financial resources, connections to wealthy owners, and experience make him a derby mainstayracing’s most compelling narratives often feature horses from humbler origins.
The ultimate underdog story belongs to Rich Strike, who in 2022 became the first claimed horse to win the Derby.
Claiming raceswhere every entered horse is available for purchase at a listed pricerepresent racing’s blue-collar backbone. Trainer Eric Reed spotted potential in Rich Strike and claimed him for just $30,000 at Churchill Downs in 2021. Seven months later, this bargain-basement purchase stunned the racing world by winning the derby as an 80-1 longshot who wasn’t even in the field until another horse scratched the day before.
The 2025 Derby features its own Cinderella story in Coal Battle, trained by 72-year-old Lonnie Briley, who has been training horses for 34 years without a single premier racing event starter. Purchased for $70,000, Coal Battle has already earned over $1 million by winning multiple prep races, including the Rebel Stakes.
For Briley, who first visited Churchill Downs just three years ago with a horse that finished dead last, this represents the democratic promise at the heart of the Derbythat with the right horse, even the smallest stable can compete on racing’s biggest stage.
A look at this year’s Kentucky Derby field
Coal Battle is one of 20 thoroughbreds in the 2025 Kentucky Derby field, which represents the various paths to Churchill Downs.
Heres how each horse in this years field made it to the Run for the Roses:
Burnham Square: From earning four points in the Holy Bull to capturing 100 in the Blue Grass Stakes (winning by a nose over East Avenue), Burnham Square ranks first on the Kentucky Derby points leader board with 130.
Sandman: This $1.2 million purchase accumulated 129 points across multiple races, culminating in an impressive Arkansas Derby victory by 2.5 lengths over Publisher.
Journalism: The current Derby favorite enters with a four-race winning streak, including the Santa Anita Derby.
Rodriguez: Maximizing the Northeast corridor by winning the Wood Memorial for 100 points, this colt represents trainer Bob Baffert’s return to the Derby since 2021.
Tiztastic: Converted a 100-point Louisiana Derby win into a prime position with 119 points, giving trainer Steve Asmussen (0-for-26 in the Derby with three runner-up finishes) another chance at his elusive first Derby victory.
Tappan Street: Florida Derby champion (110 points) who will attempt to become just the fifth horse to win the Kentucky Derby after only three career starts, following Regret (1915), Big Brown (2008), Justify (2018), and Mage (2023).
Sovereignty: Fountain of Youth winner who also finished second in the Florida Derby and totaled 110 points, Sovereignty gives Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, another chance at his first Derby win after 12 previous attempts.
Final Gambit: Jeff Ruby Steaks winner (100 points) who rallied from last to win by 3.5 lengths and will be making his first start on dirt in the Derby after previously racing on turf and synthetic surfaces.
Coal Battle: The quintessential rags-to-riches narrative with 95 points on the leaderboard, led by 72-year-old trainer Lonnie Briley, who had never even entered a horse in a premier racing event before Coal Battle’s Rebel Stakes victory at 111 odds.
Chunk of Gold: Consistent performer with 75 points who cost just $2,500 at auction and has never finished worse than second in four career starts, including runner-up in the Louisiana Derby.
Citizen Bull: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner who captured the 2-year-old championship and earned 71.25 points, attempting to become the first Juvenile winner to capture the Derby since Nyquist (2015-16).
Owen Almighty: Tampa Bay Derby champion (65 points) owned by Dutch Bros Coffee Company cofounder Travis Boersma.
East Avenue: Blue Grass Stakes runner-up (60 points) who narrowly missed victory by a nose, but whose sire (father), Medaglia d’Oro, finished fourth in his own Derby attempt in 2002.
Publisher: Arkansas Derby runner-up (60 points) who will become just the 13th maiden (winless horse) to start in the Kentucky Derby since 1937.
American Promise: Virginia Derby winner (55 points), capitalizing on the newly added qualification race with a 7.75-length victory and giving 89-year-old legendary trainer D. Wayne Lukas his shot at a fifth Derby win.
Flying Mohawk: The Jeff Ruby Steaks runner-up (50 points), who is co-owned by former MLB All-Star outfielder Jayson Werth, will be making his first start on dirt after racing exclusively on turf and synthetic surfaces.
Grande: Wood Memorial runner-up (50 points) with just three career starts who will attempt to become the fifth horse to win the Derby with so few races, guided by three-time Derby-winning jockey John Velazquez.
Built: Accumulated 45 points across multiple Fair Grounds preps, including a second in the Lecomte, third in the Risen Star, and fifth in the Louisiana Derby.
Luxor Café: The son of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah is the Japan Road qualifier and ships in on a four-race winning streak.
Admire Daytona: Europe-Middle East Road qualifier who won the UAE Derby by a nose and previously was beaten twice by fellow Derby contender Luxor Café.
The fastest two minutes in sports
For many trainers, the Kentucky Derby is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Since only 3-year-old thoroughbreds are eligible, unless you’re a Baffert-level trainer with seemingly endless resources and a deep stable, there are no second chances.
This brutal math explains why veterans like Briley wait decades for their moment, while elite trainers seem to have regular seats at racing’s most exclusive table. It’s why Coal Battle’s presence in the starting gate represents both a statistical anomaly and the enduring dream that keeps trainers like him in the game for decades, hoping for that one special thoroughbred who defies the 0.11% odds.
Coal Battle is currently a 201 underdog to win the 2025 Kentucky Derby. Journalism is the 31 favorite, followed by Sandman (81) and Sovereignty (81). But in the world’s most exclusive starting gate, each thoroughbred in the 20-horse field has already beaten the longest odds just by showing up.
