The C-suite executive’s dilemma has never been clearer: there is an analysis gap between recognizing that creativity is an essential skill versus designing space and time for individuals and teams to to build a creative capacity.
While 2023 research from Visier demonstrated that 83% of workers admit to “productivity theater”performing busy work that creates the appearance of output without meaningful resultsthat same year, the World Economic Forum declared creativity to be the second most critical skill for our workforce by 2027. The collision of these realities signals a fundamental shift that smart organizations can no longer ignore. We’re entering what I call the “Imagination Era,” and the companies that thrive will be those bold enough to redesign work around human flourishing rather than industrial-age metrics.
The Hidden Costs of Our Productivity Obsession
The numbers tell a stark story. With 71% of knowledge workers experiencing burnout and job stress (according to the Anatomy of Work Index) costing U.S. industries over $300 billion annually in absenteeism and turnover (American Institute of Stress), our current productivity models aren’t just failingthey’re actively destroying value. While executives worry about quarterly targets, they’re hemorrhaging their most valuable asset: the creative capacity of their people.
The irony is profound. At the very moment when artificial intelligence can handle routine tasks, freeing humans to do what we do bestimagine, connect, and innovatemost organizations are doubling down on mechanical approaches that treat people like sophisticated machines. This isn’t just shortsighted; it’s economically destructive.
From Extraction to Cultivation: A New Operating System
I propose a radical reframe: Instead of asking “How can we be more productive?” what if teams ask “What might we cultivate this year?” This shift from a mechanical, extractive mindset to one that embraces complexity and ambiguity isn’t philosophical luxuryit’s strategic necessity.
The difference is profound. Productivity thinking operates in linear equations: 1+1=2. Cultivation thinking embraces “both-and” complexity, leaving room for the kind of metamorphosis that creates breakthrough innovation. According to 2024 research from Thrive My Way, when trained groups engage in creative problem-solving sessions, they generate 350% more ideas that are 415% more original than traditional approaches.
The New Scorecard: New KPIs for the Imagination Era
We can develop new key performance indicators organized around “Minimum Viable Experiences” rather than traditional output metrics. These aren’t soft measuresthey’re strategic investments in the capabilities that will drive future competitiveness:
Human-Centered Metrics include measuring employee connection to meaningful work, minutes per week dedicated to deep reflection, and value creation through idea generation rather than widget production. Teams can track experimentation through small-scale prototypes and measure both organizational and community-impact audacious ideas.
Well-being and Rest Metrics recognize that innovation requires renewal. Forward-thinking companies could measure sabbaticals taken and their impact on team creativity, time spent in nature per week, and the productivity boost following movement breaks. Tracking stress reduction through wellness assessments and creating dedicated time for play, measuring new connections generated through structured “recess” time, are practical and novel concepts.
Innovation and Learning Metrics focus on interdisciplinary learning opportunities, innovation sprints, and curiosity-driven projects not tied to immediate business needs. What if you tracked the number of walking meetings, recognizing that physical movement often unlocks mental breakthroughs?
Organizations ready to make this transition can start with my three-pronged approach: First, conduct a “Cultivation Audit” to identify productivity metrics that may be limiting innovation while developing measures for long-term human development. Second, implement “Seasonal Planning” that aligns organizational rhythms with natural cycles of activity, reflection, and renewal. Third, launch a “Space Design Revolution” that creates environments supporting both individual cultivation and collective creativity.
The Competitive Advantage of Creativity
The business case is simple: in an age where AI handles routine tasks, the uniquely human capacities cultivated through intentional movement, thought, and rest become the primary drivers of creativity and organizational value. Companies embracing this approach will foster breakthrough innovation through activated default mode networks, reduce costly burnout and turnover, develop essential creativity skills, create sustainable growth patterns, and build stronger collaborative communities.
The goal isn’t abandoning productivity measures but expanding our understanding of meaningful work and impact. Organizations that make this shift will define the Imagination Era. The question isn’t whether this transformation will happen, but whether your organization will lead it or be left behind by those brave enough to cultivate human potential in service of extraordinary results.
In the summer of 2009, the NFL was bracing for war. The owners had walked away from a collective bargaining deal they had signed just two years earlier, demanding pay cuts, slashed pensions, and two extra games for free. They had stockpiled a $4 billion lockout fund and were ready to shut the game down for a year if that is what it took.
On the other side stood a union reeling from the sudden death of its legendary leader, Gene Upshaw. Into that void stepped an outsidera trial lawyer from Washington, D.C., named DeMaurice Smithwhom ESPN called the man with the toughest job in sports. The players had less than $300 million, a string of failed strikes behind them, and the very real prospect of being steamrolled. On top of everything, the players desperately needed to end the owners’ unilateral right under the old deal to add as many games to the regular season as they wished.
[Photo: Penguin Random House]
But this time, the fight would not be linear. The new leader pushed his players to battle on every frontpublic opinion, Congress, and most of all, in the one place owners thought they couldnt be touched: their money. Out of that fight came one of the most unlikely weapons in sports labor historyan insurance policy against a lockout.
It was the first, and only, of its kind. And if the players could pull it off, it might just prevent them from being at the mercy of thirty-one billionaires who saw an opportunity for the greatest power and money grab in the history of professional sports.Excerpted from Smith’s book, “Turf Wars: The Fight for the Soul of America’s Game,” this is the story of how how that deal went down.
AN ACE IN THE HOLE
With negotiations tabled, I did what I do when Im overwhelmed: I escape, and I drink.
An old law partner buddy, David Barrett, and I went to Palm Springs, California, and pounded cocktails.
Owners had been openly bragging about their $4 billion rainy-day fundenough to survive a months-long pausefor years, even before the dust had settled following the Great Recession. Banks werent in a position to lend so much money, and after meeting so many owners, I couldnt imagine that some of those overgrown man-babies had the discipline to save roughly $130 million apiece.
Would the TV networks give it to them? Dave asked. The league has leverage, he continued, because of how much the networks want the broadcast rights.
The day after Dave and I hit the bars, I authorized the hiring of a former network executive to advise us on television contracts. I lobbed what felt like a stupid question to the former executive: Could there be a clause in a broadcast rights contract that would pay owners even if games werent played?
Every contract, this executive explained, includes language about make goods. Say you run a doughnut shop and advertise it on Google. If, for instance, Alphabets servers get hacked and all of its sites go dark, this is the clause that requires Google to make good on the agreement and publish the ad later.
Using similar logic, networks could agree to a deal in which they paid a certain amount of money in the event that games werent played, in exchange for a discount on future payments.
If our theory was correct, it was as if the league had taken out an insurance policy from the networks. If they had, it would have been for less moneya potential violation of the leagues obligations to players under the collective bargaining agreement.
All of this got me thinking that it sure would be amazing if there were such a thing as lockout insurance. It was a disaster wed known was coming, and it wasnt as if we were causing the lockout. In fact, our players were trying like hell to avoid missing work, so the risk wasnt even ours to transfer. Still, I wondered, could there be such an insurance policy? It was a question worth asking.
I got permission to pursue this as a potential nuclear option in our arsenal. Its ultimate value wasnt the payout. It was the leverage it would create. Because if the policy did pay out, our side could withstand a work stoppage for far longer than the owners believed. Their $4 billion had to cover keeping stadiums and team facilities online, administrative staffs paid, and front-end costs guaranteed. Factoring in players salaries, this amount suggested they were prepared to miss half the 2011 season as they waited on players to cave.
But if we sprang this insurance policy on owners at the right time, I explained, owners would realize their eight-game strategy was doomed. The insurance payout was $850 million, set to be distributed after two missed regular-season games. It was enough for players to sit out the entire year, and while it might not pay for their full salary, bonuses, and benefits, it was enough to pay each player $200,000 per weekenough that players wouldnt beg me to sign whatever proposal the league put forth.
Now, here was the tricky part: The premium would cost $47 million. Players murmured, knowing the union had only $200 million in its coffers. It was a huge gamble. I believed that the insurance payout would be enough to protect our men and give them financial security for an entire missed season. For now, we had to keep it quiet. Secrecy was our most important component. We had an ace in the hole, and I had known for months who I wanted to deal the cards
‘Maybe its time we all put our guns away’
My phone rang. It was Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots.
He asked I was up for one more meeting.
Look, he said, this isnt a time to be hiding stuff. If you guys have more resources, we need to be transparent with each other.
Lets just say I took steps to protect our players, I said. Nobody is going to crumble early.
In my legal career, I had worked for men like these. Gone against them. Theyre not the type to congratulate you on a successful gambit and just accept defeat with a warm handshake. These guys are used to winning, and on the rare occasions they dont win, their response is to change the rules and punish the opposing side for making them sweat.
As we waited outside the meeting room, I mostly felt dread. My brain had produced three possible scenarios, two of them bad. Owners could storm out or call our bluff, effectively a challenge to see who broke first. Players are taught to feel comfort in certainty, so either of those possibilities would break us. The third was that Kraft realized that a civil war was good for no one, that the NFLs business model was impervious to inflation, elections, and geopolitical conflict, invincible to almost everything except greed.
The door finally opened, and we were invited into an initial meeting with just a few participats. On our side, NFL Players Association President Kevin Mawae picked Domonique Foxworth, Jeff Saturday, and me. I made eye contact with everyone in the holding room, more than fifty guys, and tried to convey confidence and conceal my anxiety. Theres no such thing as a fearless leader, and if there were, I cant imagine following them. Any conflict requires self-awareness and the acknowledgment that all of your planning, strategizing, and overthinking could fail. Against some of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world, I was well aware of the odds.
We returned to the conference room door, and I lowered the handle. There sat NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, the Coboys’ owner Jerry Jones, and Kraft at a round table. To me, every group is a jury, and I try to read their shoulders and eyes. Richardson was fuming; Jones calmer than ice water. We took our seats, and Kraft began the meeting.
In the same tone of voice I used for closing arguments in a murder trial, I told everyone about the insurance policy and its details. I paused, allowing the information to sink in. Nobody said a word.
Im sure you thought there would be a resolution by week four, I said, because players would collapse. But were content to sit out the entire season.
Im not sure Ive ever seen a hatred in someones eyes like that of Jerry Richardson. Roger turned bright red, the vein in his neck pulsing. Kraft remained silent. Jerry Jones seemed to realize that, in a single sentence, we had destabilized years of planning and maneuvering by the league.
So lets just wait a minute, he said. Maybe its time that we all put our guns away.
Kraft and Richardson looked at him.
We can just sliiiide em back into the holster, Jones continued.
The moment of truth
In a negotiation, this is whats called the deal pointthe moment of truth. Jones recognized it before anyone else, acknowledging that owners were cornered. There would be no player collapse, and thered be no eight- or ten-game season.
Why havent I been told about this? Roger said. De, you have to understand that Ive set up some things to protect the owners. Things I havent even told them about.
Thats when I knew. It was checkmate.
Ah, Puddin, I remember thinking. I got you, didnt I?
Kraft took a long breath and said that wed given the league some things to discuss. He looked at me and issued the faintest smile, an acknowledgment, finally, that I might actually be worthy of respect.From the book TURF WARS by DeMaurice Smith 2025 by DeMaurice Smith. Published on August 5, 2025, by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
The executive order President Trump recently issued that calls for classical architecture to be the preferred style for all federal buildings and U.S. courthouses bears the imposing character and signature of the former real estate developer. But the order itself is the product of the single-minded persistence of one man: Justin Shubow.
Shubow, who runs a small Washington, D.C., nonprofit advocacy group known as the National Civic Art Society, has been waiting for this moment for years. Since joining the NCAS in 2011, Shubow has been telling anyone who will listen that the architecture of American democracy has been subverted for the past 75 years by an elite architectural aesthetic that flies in the face of public preference.
Modernist architecture, Shubow argues, has become the de facto standard for new federal buildings, despite the fact that the Founding Fathers established a tradition of using classical architecture in federal buildings.
“The core buildings of government in the United States are classical,” he says during a video call in early August, pointing to the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court, among others. “I think it is inarguable that classical architecture is the architecture Americans most associate with our democracy.”
Shubows efforts started to pay off in 2020, when President Trump issued an executive order in December of that year, calling for classical and loosely-defined “traditional” architecture to be the default style of federal buildings in Washington, D.C. By that time, Trump had already lost the November election, and while the order rankled many in the architecture community, they didnt have to worry for long. President Joe Biden revoked the order just two months later.
The new executive order, which Shubow helped draft, calls for essentially the same things as the first one. And because it’s been issued on the early side of Trump’s second term, it could end up affecting the designs of at least some federal courthouses and office buildings in the government’s near-term development pipeline.
As it did during Trump’s first term, the American Institute of Architects has come out in opposition to the executive order. “This directive would replace thoughtful design processes with rigid requirements that will limit architectural choice,” the AIA said in a statement urging the administration to rescind the order. “Each era of America’s architectural legacy has honored the past while addressing contemporary needs through diverse design solutions. Restricting federal architecture options to styles from antiquity ignores this natural evolution and limits our freedom to create buildings that truly serve modern communities.”
Shubow has finally gotten what he wants. But some worry it may come at the cost of limiting architectural expression at the highest levels. Rather than cementing classical buildings as the architecture of democracy, it could end up forever aligning the style as yet another signifier of Trump’s divisive MAGA movement.
What the NCAS wants from the executive order
The National Civic Art Society was founded in 2002 as a nonpartisan organization made up of architects, urban planners, historians, philosophers, democracy advocates, and critics. It was meant to beat the drum for classical architecture, a historicist style of architecture with roots in ancient times, succinctly characterized by lots of columns and pediments.
In addition to ancient Greek structures and the widespread architectural influence of the Roman Empire, many of the most well-known examples of classical architecture are prominent government and court buildings scattered across the U.S., with a heavy concentration in the nation’s capital.
This old style of building is one that many people, especially in the U.S., recognize as a representation of the government and the system of democracy. Deepening that recognition has been the work of the NCAS for nearly a quarter-century.
In many ways, NCASs battle is already won. There is no real shortage of classical architecture in the world, whether ancient examples or modern forms in present-day democracies. But it is inarguably an older style of architecture in a field that often prides itself on pushing new ideas and forms, with practitioners who see their work as a mix of art and science.
For many architects, innovative design does not involve buildings that look like they were designed thousands of years ago. Accordingly, the designers who have sought out commissions for federal buildings in recent decades have proposed buildings that largely lean away from the touchstones of classical architecture.
In recent years, this trend has become the focal point of the NCAS. Shubow has said the predominant federal architecture trend of the mid-20th century onward has been generic boxes and, to a lesser extent, the steel and glass cages that came to exemplify corporate America and international business.
“There’s no doubt that modernism is hegemonic within architecture schools and within the profession,” Shubow says. This hegemony has infiltrated the federal government since the 1950s, he argues, exemplified most prominently by the Design Excellence Program, a 1960s-era policy from the federal government’s General Services Administration that set standards for federal buildings.
One section of that policy frameworkthe Guiding Principles for Federal Architecturesays that the development of an official federal architecture style must be avoided and for architects to create their own concepts of what a government building looks like. “Design must flow from the architectural profession to the Government, and not vice versa,” the policy reads. The new executive order reverses that flow.
Shubow says this policy was targeted because it opened the floodgates for modernist designs to take hold in the federal architecture portfolio. Offending examples, according to Shubow, include the brutalist-style J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building (1975) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development headquarters (1968) in Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Federal Building (2007), designed by Morphosis.
These buildings and many other modern federal buildings feature heavily in the lectures, speeches, and presentations that Shubow has been delivering during his time as president of the NCAS. He often reers to the FBI building as the ministry of fear and the San Francisco Federal Building as an alien spacecraft that’s going to kill you with laser beams.”
He calls his presentation a very persuasive slideshow juxtaposing modernist designs with iconic classical buildings like the U.S. Capitol building, the U.S. Supreme Court building, and the White House, as well as historic examples of classicism dating back to Roman times.
Shubows slideshows single out brutalist and deconstructivist modern federal buildings as being oppressive, alien, and dehumanizing. One thing people have to remember about these brutalist buildings is not just that they have ugly architecture. Many of them are bad urbanism. These super blocks cut off parts of the city from each other, Shubow says.
Beyond its recent turn as a flashpoint between conservatives and progressives, brutalism has been a divisive architectural style for decades. It emerged in the mid-20th century as structural engineering techniques enabled economical concrete-based buildings to grow bigger and taller.
Postwar architects latched onto the flexibility and expressiveness of designing with poured concrete, leading to what some have called “a golden age” of modernist design. Compared to steel or stone, the lower cost of building with concrete made it a popular material choice for fiscally responsible government buildings in the mid- and late 20th century.
Though some of the resulting brutalist buildings are well loved and even awarded, the style’s use of raw concrete exteriors and imposing forms is often criticized as being cold, sterile, and (at least in postwar America) “Soviet.”
Shubow’s presentations are not subtle in the way they demonize the modernist approach. It’s fundamentally the photos of the buildings that make the argument, he says.
That’s how Shubow and the NCAS got Trump, during his first term, to make classical architecture a part of the presidential agenda, even if only as a parting shot.
What Trump wants from the executive order
The real estate developer-turned-president would seem to be a natural ally for a building-centric group like NCAS. But Trump’s real estate venturesfrom branded luxury towers and gold-themed casinos to a Manhattan hotel project that saw a classically inspired building renovated and covered in a glass facadeshow more of a preference for the modern design the NCAS opposes.
Nevertheless, the NCAS managed to get a meeting in the West Wing of the White House with four or five members of the president’s Domestic Policy Council in 2019. Shubow presented his slideshow and made his case. I explained what had gone wrong with federal architecture and why we needed to do something to reform it, Shubow says. It was from that meeting that the idea of an executive order was hatched.
Shubow says his organization would have been happy to have the same meeting with any of the other presidential administrations over the past 24 years. We’re like any advocacy organization that has policy ideas and brings them to the White House to be implemented, Shubow says. We have promoted our ideas, and they have been accepted.
Shubow and the NCAS helped draft what would become Trump’s December 2020 executive order titled “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture.
The timing of the first executive order during Trump’s lame duck period following his losing reelection bid in 2020 suggests that his interest in the subject was more concerned with stirring up controversy than pursuing policy. One source, speaking on background, says White House insiders saw the heated response to the executive order as proof of its worth.
The White House press office did not respond to multiple interview requests.
In his second term, Trump has embraced buildings as cultural flashpoints. The White House recently focused on the renovation of the classical-style Federal Reserve headquarters as a pretense to have Fed Chair Jerome Powell fired before his term ends. Trump also followed through on a campaign platform to move the FBI headquarters out of the brutalist Hoover building.
Hes also spearheaded several major changes to the White House, including the paving of the Rose Garden and the recently announced plan to build a 90,000-square-foot neoclassical ballroom. This second executive order on a preferred federal architectural style is a continuation of this trend, and appears primed to sow division.
Shubow calls it a straightforward display of populism. I don’t think that a new executive order like the one President Trump previously issued should be controversial to normal people, he says. Sure, architectural elites are going to oppose it.
A childhood hatred
The NCAS got an unexpectedly ideal leader when Shubow joined the group. He says he’s been very sensitive to the built environment for his entire life. I remember hating a brutalist public library, even as a child, he says. Located in his hometown of Towson, Maryland, the 1974 building is a concrete complex made up of bold geometric forms. For Shubow, it was an affront.
Yet, Shubow is neither a designer nor an architect. He earned a master’s degree in philosophy in 2004 from the University of Michigan, where he was exposed to the English philosopher Roger Scruton, who was known, among other things, for his focus on conservatism and a harsh stance against modernist architecture.
Shubow later got a law degree from Yale and moved to Washington, D.C. Before relocating, he says he learned about NCAS after chatting about classical architecture with a fellow guest at a wedding. Since becoming the group’s president in 2011, he’s taken on the full-time role of arguing for classical architecture and against modernist architecture.
He says not being a designer is one of the strengths he brings to NCAS, comparing his outsider’s view to that of Jane Jacobs, whose work challenged the status quo of city planning in the 1950s. She demonstrated that an entire profession can essentially be mistaken, Shubow says. I was never brainwashed into the ideology of modernism. Given my training in philosophy, I think I’m quite god at recognizing bogus arguments. And there is a lot of B.S. underlying architectural theory today.
Shubow’s approach can be aggressive, especially for an organization whose focus is the seemingly urbane realm of aesthetics and culture. For the NCAS, the approach seems to be working. Since becoming president of the NCAS, the organization has seen its annual budget and contributions steadily increase, with a sharp jump in both contributions and in Shubow’s compensation in 2022 and 2023, the most recent year for which IRS filings are available.
Shubow declined to offer details on contributors to the organization. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the group is not required to disclose its contributors, but many similar organizations typically rely heavily on support from their own boards. One NCAS board member since 2019 is the billionaire Thomas Klingenstein, who gave more than $10 million to the Trump campaign during the 2024 election. Wherever the money is coming from, the group’s leadership sees it paying off.
Justin has been successful because he knows the issues and he’s tenacious, says Marion Smith, an NCAS board member who served as the group’s chairman from 2012 to 2022. He tells Fast Company via email that during his tenure, he defended Shubow from two separate coup attempts that sought to remove him from the organization’s leadership. Some people criticized him, but my response always was: Yes, he’s a bulldog. But he’s our bulldog.
The dilemma of political convenience
Though Shubow has now succeeded twice in elevating the mission of the NCAS to the level of presidential intervention, there are some who worry that linking the cause of classical architecture so closely to Trump is a mistake. The style already carries what many would call an unfair association with conservatism. Having it be part of Trump’s platform was enough for at least one NCAS member to revoke his support for the organization.
Steven Semes practiced classical architecture for more than 30 years and is now a professor at the University of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture. He’s in agreement with Shubow that the federal government has, for too long, been closed off to classical architecture. He was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the NCAS. Until Trump came along, he says. For someone who loves classical architecture and also happens to be a political liberalas I am and as many of my colleagues areit really does pose a dilemma.
Semes says he urged the organization to be cautious about the risks of making classical architecture an extension of Trump’s divisive presidency and tarnishing its merits. I’m angry that people will see the Trump embrace of classical architecture and they will say, ‘See, we told you that classical architecture is fascistic, and this proves it, he says. As some of us pointed out in the first Trump administration, when the first executive order came out, you very well may set back the movement for classical architecture. This could have a very negative impact on what we’ve worked for for decades.
Putting aside his own politics, Semes says that it should be clear that Trump’s focus on classical architecture is hardly genuine. He says the Trump administration is simply using its executive orders to stoke a culture war, pitting his own followers against establishment elites.
Shubow doesn’t dispute some of the impetus. I think [Trump] saw this as a winning issue. That this is an issue about ordinary people versus a kind of elite, and that elite being the architectural profession, he says.
Architectural styles, though, are almost totally beside the point. If you want to know what the MAGA movement thinks of classical architecture, you can see how they treated the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, Semes says about the violent storming of the historic landmark building in 2021. Obviously, what it meant to them was, it’s the headquarters of everything they hated. But when I look at the U.S. Capitol, I have an opposite opinion.
Policy and legacy
Shubow is not fazed by the dilemma of pursuing the mission of the NCAS through political convenience. It has been a goal of my organization to bring this issue to national attention, he says. Two executive orders, a presidential memorandum on classical architecture issued on the first day of Trump’s second term, plus Shubow’s appointment to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 2018 to 2021 equate to a certain degree of validation.
The NCAS was once close to achieving a more substantial version of its goals than the revocable proclamation of an executive order. In 2023, the group successfully convinced then-Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) to sponsor the Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act, followed by a version introduced in the Senate by then-Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Both bills floundered, but Shubow is hopeful for binding legislation this time around. (Banks now represents Indiana in the Senate, and Rubio is the secretary of state. Banks’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)
Policy change could be coming soon, affecting new federal buildings in the pipeline and those to be built in the future. The day after Trumps second federal architecture executive order, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) announced hed be introducing a bill in the House to return our federal buildings to classical/traditional architecture that reflects the spirit of democracy and self-government.
The new architecture executive order may not live past this current presidential administration, or it could get translated into legislation with a more viable path to approval. Either way, it could end up influencing at least some of the federal building portfolio in the years ahead, which includes a handful of federal courthouses and annex buildings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Hartford, Connecticut.
According to Shubow, just a few new buildings could be enough to show that the last 75 years of modernist design have been a mistake. If we get beautiful, inspiring new federal courthouses and office buildings and contrast them to what had been built previously, he says, I think people will see that the president was right.
When I was in college, I couldnt close the front door to my dorm room. The wooden door swelled in the August heat. Multiple maintenance requests were made, and yet, weeks later, the problem remained unresolved.
I went door to door to every room and found out how long people were waiting to have their urgent maintenance requests resolved. As it turns out, there was a process problem. I bypassed the usual channels and went with my list straight to the head of campus residences. After all, the process clearly wasnt working for anyone.
You might be wondering, what does this have to do with the C-suite? The truth is, this experience mirrors what is happening in nearly every organization. Those at the top are often not aware of whats going on below. Its not that they dont care. They just have people who shield them from the truth.
You see, the higher a leader rises, the less likely they are to hear honest feedback or unfiltered reality. Thats because asking the right questions and staying grounded in whats happening is a skill in itself. When leaders dont do it, it costs the organization. A leader might be making poor decisions due to inaccurate or incomplete data. Incomplete truths can lead to low psychological safety and trust, which we know can lead to disastrous outcomes. The leader might be missing out on cultural blind spots that lead to ethical or reputational failures. An organization that doesnt allow dissent will see a stall in innovation, which can lead to extinction.
As a social scientist who coaches, speaks on, and writes about success and high achievers, including in my recent book, Ive helped many leaders learn how to increase their awareness and navigate what is happening on the front lines.
There are several reasons why people guard senior leaders from the truth. Most arent malicious, but are based on self-preservation. Here are some of the most common reasons and ideas on how to act when you suspect this might be brewing:
1) Fear of consequences
Employees self-censor to avoid appearing negative. Dont shoot the messenger” of bad news is a valid concern. Employees feel that if they share bad news, they risk being sidelined or worse, fired.
At Ford, when Alan Mulally took over as CEO, he asked his leadership team to color-code project updates. Week after week, they were all green, until one brave executive finally submitted a red status, indicating things werent going well, and that he needed help. Instead of punishing him, Mulally applauded him and made him a shining example for the entire company. Mulallys red-yellow-green system made honesty a leadership requirement, not a risk.As a leader, you need to show your employees that you value and prioritize hearing the truth. Reward those who surface problems rather than those who maintain appearances. Make it clear that you cant help or redirect resources if you dont know the problem (and its extent).
Now, there is a systematic way to do this so that you dont sound like a whiner. The presenter should share the goal, the current status, and what theyve tried so far. This shows that the presenter has done everything in their power and is looking for alternative solutions or ideas they might not have considered.
Encourage upward feedback through surveys, town halls, or anonymous portals. Have regular communication where you say phrases like I hear there is a major problem with X. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Here is our corrective course of action. This shows that your request to hear concerns, as painful as they may be, isnt performative. You want to be able to do something to remedy the situation, but first, you must know it exists.
2) Desire to please
Everyone wants to be in the good graces of leadership. People often think that telling them what they want to hear will do just that. They end up sugarcoating updates to match what they think the leader wants to hear. They talk about their accomplishments and improvements while avoiding the areas of concern.
3) Organizational distance
Multiple layers insulate leaders from day-to-day reality. When theyre confined to their offices and circles of influence, they dont often know whats happening on the front lines. Organizational etiquette means that people often report to their direct manager, not the head of the organization (although Gen Z seems to be breaking this mold).If people dont see you and know you, they cant approach you. Jared Lamb, a school principal, turned his office into a conference room and repurposed an AV cart as his desk, which allowed him to roll through the school and be around the students and teachers throughout the workday. This way, he was able to see everyone in action, and offer a helping hand exactly in the moment where they needed him, whether it was a teacher needing a bathroom break or helping with a child who needed extra attention.
No, going fully mobile may not be conducive for everyone. You can, however, make the time to lead while walking around. Asking pivotal questions such as What are you working on? Whats your most pressing deadline? Where are you getting resistance? Did you find a solution to that problem you were facing? What have you tried? Where do you need help? This will actively and authentically show that you care. Youll also be on the front lines, so you can see when people are celebrating or supporting a colleague, which is something that leaders should be aware of.
4) Time scarcity
As leaders become busier (and have fuller calendars), they rely on filtered summaries and dashboards. The problem is that those give glossed-over versions of reality.
The critical question to ask here is Why? Why did that happen this way? Why didnt it happen before? Why is it taking so long? Instead of only having updates at meetings, use the time to understand the why behind the dashboard results.
The most effective leaders arent just visionaries. Theyre truth-seekers. Surround yourself with those you can trust to tell you the truth and mentors who can help you seek it. Include people outside the chain of command and organization for diverse, candid input. You cant lead well if you dont know whats real. Remember, staying grounded isnt a passive state. Its a form of discipline that you need to practice.
On any given day in Los Angeles county, the roughly 8,000 frontline homeless workers in the region are desperately trying to help their unhoused clients find a pathway to a permanent home and a new life.
For those trying to help parents living on the street make the jump, the significant lack of childcare facilities and daycare can make an already challenging effort seem like a Herculean task.
[Photo: Paul Vu]
At a former Dennys in Reseda, California, a first-of-its-kind experiment in offering on-site childcare to homeless parents in hopes of making the path to recovery that much easier. This new daycare and early childhood education facility will help make the adjacent Woodlands, a former hotel turned transitional housing site for homeless families, into a more holistic service center.
The preschool and community centera $3 million renovation project which just held an opening celebration in early August and will begin operations in early Septemberfills a void in most homeless housing and service centers. Services for children and families remain very hard to come by, preventing many single parents and families that are unhoused from transitioning to a more stable and secure housing situation. The Betty Bazaar Center is the first state-licensed childcare center to open adjacent to homeless housing.
[Image: courtesy Hope the Mission]
According to a 2023 statewide survey in California by the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, roughly 7% of participants were adults in homeless families, typically with one child with a median age of 7. Ken Craft, CEO of Hope the Mission, a nonprofit that operates 33 housing shelters in and around L.A., and worked with Childcare Resource Center (CCRC) to staff the center adjacent to the Woodlands, said kids in this situation experience real hardships.
[Image: courtesy Hope the Mission]
Families at the Woodlands, the former motel turned into a family-centric homeless shelter focused on single moms, is a 100-unit, 400-bed facility that opened in the spring of 2023, also run by Hope the Mission, and designed by Kadre Architects. Families seeking space must go through the traditional homeless intake process and qualify for housing vouchers.
Studies have shown that kids that become homeless are four times more likely to have developmental problems as they go through school, and that’s because of the instability of their living situation and poor nutrition, he said. Many homeless shelters will have volunteers come in to watch the kids, but there typically isnt the budget, staff, or space to create a true preschool environment.
[Photo: Paul Vu]
Craft said he was thinking of all the single moms who struggle to work and provideoften taking long trips on public transportation and failing to find reliable, affordable childcarewhen Hope the Mission was able to take control of the old hotel that would become the Woodlands. He saw the dilapidated former Dennys as an opportunity, and reached out to CCRC and the Mary E. Bazar-Robin Foundation to discuss funding and operating a space for kids.
The design of the 4,500-square-foot center reflected the architects desire for a vibrant, colorful building on Venture Boulevard, a main thoroughfare, that would create both a landmark for the neighborhood and an inviting place for children. Nerin Kadribegovic, founder and lead architect of Kadre Architects, has deep experience working on homeless housing, transitional homes, and tiny home shelters.
[Photo: Paul Vu]
Designed to reference airplane wings and aviation motifsthe namesake Betty Bazaars family fortune came from aerospace and selling aviation antennaethe exterior of the building and roofline contain layers of blade-like pieces of aluminum, painted white and perforated. It creates a layered, almost ghostly facade that wraps the building and gives it an elevated presence. The extensive solar array on the buildings rooftop provides enough power to make it a net-zero facility.
[Photo: Paul Vu]
Kadribegovics designs also called for scraping away the fume hoods and HVAC systems on the top of the former restaurant, and creating a roof with a series of skylights and a carved ceiling that offers the appearance of an abstract belly of a plane.
[Photo: Paul Vu]
Add in the colorful walls, filled with blocks of bright paint meant to reference the contours of microchips, and the building offers an engaging space for kids. Open space on the campus between the community center and housing includes outdoor play space for children; roughly half of the 400 residents of the Woodlands are under 18.
These kids arent just playing or being babysat during the day, said Craft. Theres important education, reading, social integration, and elementary preparedness taking place with CCRC staff.
Were excited to be on the tip of the spear and help make this happen, said Craft. What we’re trying to do is to build really a complete, cohesive center that really addresses all the needs of a mom, of a child, of a teenager.
Reigning National Football League MVP Josh Allen met Therabody founder and chiropractic doctor Jason Wersland at his first Buffalo Bills training camp in 2018. Three years later, Allen became an investor in the company (along with a laundry list of other athletes and celebrities), and now he is becoming the brands first-ever performance adviser.
The move reflects a broader trend of brands expanding the job description of ambassadors to go beyond mere promotion, with roles that include key investors or roles in product and R&D. We’ve seen it with On and Zendaya, David Beckham and IM8, even the Kelce brothers and Garage Beer, among others.
“For me, it’s not just about the recovery, it’s about preparing and being ready to perform,” Allen tells Fast Company. “I’m excited to bring what I’ve learned that works for me on the field into the product development side to help push some innovation forward.”
Allen says Therabody products like the Theragun Pro Plus, JetBoots Pro Plus, and ThermBack LED wrap play a significant role in his preparation, training, and recovery routines. The company is launching a new ad campaign starring Allen, as well as two exclusive Josh Allen Performance Bundles in the U.S. from September 7 through November 22, built around products Allen uses in his personal routine.
Make it official
Therabody chief marketing officer John Solomon says that making Allen an official performance adviser is just formalizing a process and relationship hes already had with the brand since that first training camp.
We wanted to formalize that process with Josh, as a longtime investor and Therabody user, but also as someone who is having a huge moment right now, Solomon says. It allows us to get insights quicker and for him to be a part of the process, which makes him an even more enthusiastic advocate when products are launched.
This new role is aimed at strengthening the brands place in sports and performance, which has exploded with copycat and competitive products since the first Theragun was launched in 2016. In more recent years, the company has branched out to include wellness (pain, stress, sleep) and beauty (focused on antiaging). Since expanding, Solomon says the company has seen double-digit year-over-year growth, only recently interrupted by tariffs.
Authentic Allen
Allen says that his relationship with Therabody is rooted in the same process he uses for all of his business and commercial partnerships.
It’s really about the authenticity of itnever putting my name on something that I personally don’t believe in or I wouldn’t use, he says.
In the past year, Allen has starred in ads for Gatorade, Pepsi, and Snickers. He credits his close advisers and some Hall of Famers with helping him navigate this side of his career. I’m very fortunate to have a really good team around me, obviously with my wife and my family, he says. And then, I’ve had small talks with guys like Peyton [Manning] and Tom [Brady], because they’ve done pretty well for themselves off the football field as well.
Earlier this year, Allen signed on as the first New Era brand ambassador to have a direct investment stake in the headwear company, and he also joined the Cashmere Fund, a Nasdaq-listed interval fund led by former Endeavor exec Elia Infascelli. He sees this latest move with Therabody as another way to utilize his present to help secure his future.
At the end of the day, you can only play football for so long, but you can use your expertise in other fields just like this, Allen says. It’s a chance for me to help a brand and become better at something outside of the game of football.
On 10 wooded acres outside of Tallahassee, Florida, a curved, wood-paneled home juts out of the natural landscape like a ship thats been permanently grounded on land. Its the only residence designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the whole state, and its currently on the market for $2.1 million.
[Screenshot: NAI Global]
Nicknamed the Spring House after a nearby natural water feature, the home was completed in 1954 as a commission for husband and wife George and Clifton Lewis. According to the Spring House Institute (the organization responsible for the propertys preservation), the Lewises asked Wright to design a space for them with the stipulation that they had a lot of children and not much money.
The resulting 2,000-square-foot structure is an example of how Wrights experimentation with complex curved geometries shaped the tail end of his careera fascination that’s also apparent in his design for New York City’s iconic Guggenheim Museum.
[Photo: Swcopeland/Wiki Commons]
What the Spring House has in common with the Guggenheim
For most Americans, the name Frank Lloyd Wright probably calls to mind a structure dominated by artfully arranged parallel lines and hard anglesthe kind of geometry exemplified by some of Wrights most iconic buildings, like the Fallingwater home in Pennsylvania or the Ennis House in Southern California.
However, in his later years, Wright became more interested in understanding how carefully conceived curves could change the utility of a space.
This curve-based approach, termed Wrights hemicycle style, involved designing semicircular floor plans behind large curved glass walls to allow the building to receive the full arc of the sun during the day. In the Spring House, thats most evident through the homes back wall, which features a sweeping semicircle that looks out into the back yard and is almost entirely paneled in glass.
Per the Spring House Institute, the Spring House is one of just 11 hemicycle houses designed by Wright, and one of only two hemicycle houses with its “unusual boat-like shape,” derived from the intersection of two arcs.
John Waters, preservation program director at the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, says he believes the Spring House is a reinterpretation of an earlier design known as the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs Second House, which similarly employed a curved exterior to let in maximum light.
“There are a number of aspects of the Spring House, like the way its second story is suspended from the roof, that are similar to the second Jacobs house,” Waters says. “But there are also some really interesting tweaks. Either end of the interior balcony gracefully extends out beyond the glazed wall to exterior balconies on either side. I think it’s just a very elegant design in that way.”
[Photo: NAI Global]
Waters notes that Wright used similar design principles to simultaneously create the Guggenheim Museum, recognizable for its interior of concentric white circles, as well as the David and Gladys Wright House, which features a circular spiral design.
“It’s probably a chicken-and-egg situation in terms of which design was leading the others, but they are all sort of conceptualized at the same time,” Waters says.
Summer is drawing to a close, back-to-school season is here, and its the final sprint toward 2026. Cue “The Great Lock In of 2025.”
In mid-August, social media started buzzing with posts about The Great Lock In. As the name suggests, its built around the Gen Z slang for fully committing or hyperfocusing on a task, goal, or activity. From now until the end of the year, the idea is to “lock in” and to get your life in order and your goals checked off before 2026.
@meechiexx It is upon us ladies and gentlemen #fyp #xyzbca #real Slowest Stargazing – Marcelo De Carvalho
According to the Know Your Meme website, the trend began with creator @shmeat27, who last month posted NBA highlights captioned: “The type energy we bringing to the great lock in aug-oct 2025.” That video has nearly a quarter of a million views and has since inspired a wave of similar content.
@shmeat27 Ts been a hall of fame start already #fyp #typeshyt #shmeat27 original sound – new9ra
The great lock in of August to December 2025 can make generational change for your life, another creator posted. Ive been slacking all summer, he continued. That means Im gonna be working hard all winter.
@acoth.will WHY NOT US BOYS WHO IS GONNA CARRY THE BOATS AND THE LAWWWGGGGGS original sound – Prem – Prem
Social media loves nothing more than a self-development trend. On X, user @quinnslcm wrote: “I don’t think you understand how serious the great lock in from August to December 2025 is.” They continued: “You can feel it in your bones, the air starts tasting different, there’s a restlessness in your soul that knows something is shifting.”
i dont think you understand how serious the great lock in from August to December 2025 is. you can feel it in your bones, the air starts tasting different, there's a restlessness in your soul that knows something is shifting. 2016 all over again.— quinn (@quinnslcm) August 16, 2025
There are no hard-and-fast rules for “The Great Lock In of 2025” beyond, well, locking in. In many ways, its a rebrand of 2024s Winter Arc, another self-improvement trend that encouraged a seasonal focus on discipline and momentum after summer indulgence.
Of course, the pressure of locking inand the reminder that there are only a few months left in the year to hit whatever goals you scribbled down in Januarycan feel overwhelming. But time is a social construct, and life is more than a relentless quest for optimization.
Still, if the start of a new season and that nostalgic back-to-school energy have you feeling renewed, it might just be the perfect time to lock in.
Anxiety and ambition often go hand in handbut we rarely talk about that openly, especially in the context of leadership. Morra Aarons-Mele, author of The Anxious Achiever and host of the award-winning podcast of the same name, has built a career helping high performers understand and reframe the role anxiety plays in their lives. In our conversation, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity, she shares why anxiety doesnt have to be a weakness, how anxious achievers can set boundaries without losing drive, and why learning to work with our inner criticrather than against itcan be a powerful force for growth.
JW: What does the term anxious achiever mean to you and how can we begin to reframe anxiety not as a weakness but as a potential source of strength?
MAM: An anxious achiever is someone who channels anxiety into ambition, work ethic, productivity, and leadership. Along the way, theyve learned that performance equals value. Many people tell me, When I achieved, I was loved. I learned thats what I should doand the fear of losing keeps me moving forward. Others say, I grew up poor, with a single mom who struggled and a dad who didnt pay the bills. Ill never be that vulnerable again. For them, the anxiety of scarcity drives their determination.
Anxiety is really a misunderstood emotion. We have a lot of social stigma against what anxiety represents in our culture, especially in leadership. And therefore we pretend we don’t have it, which is crazy because everyone experiences anxiety. We need to have anxietyits what has kept us alive as a species. It’s our body’s way of preparing us for action. So, we shouldnt want to rid ourselves of our anxiety, but we may need healthier ways to manage it.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
JW: What are your go-to strategies for managing anxious thoughts in the middle of a workday?
MAM: I’m a big believer in understanding the physical roots of anxiety. I have found that I need to calm my body before I can go into any cognitive reframing (the process of reframing our thoughts to try to change our mind or compartmentalize). So I have props on my deska pen, a water bottle, this egg shaped rock that I love and I use these visceral tools to ground myself. So if I’m feeling my anxiety rise and I’m on a Zoom call, I might grab my water bottle or my rock and just really tune into it, feel it.
With practice, Ive trained my body to downregulate a bit. Then I use breathing to bring my brain back online and reengage. Anxiety can spiral in a meeting when your nervous system ramps upyou cant breathe, cant focus, and feel shaky. Thats why grounding practices are so important.
JW: How can anxious achievers set boundaries in workplaces that often reward constant availability and overachievement?
MAM: Yeah, it’s the rub, right? Anxious achievers often land in environments that both reward and exploit them. Too often, it takes burning out to realize they can set boundariesand thats where therapy can be transformative. I love ACT therapy because it helps people reconnect with their values and sense of self. Why does it feel so good when my boss calls me all day? Is that really what I want? Does this serve me?
When you clarify your values, you reclaim agency. Many of us repeat old patterns because they once workedwe were the perfect kid. But adulthood gives us the chance to ask, Why am I driving myself so hard? Do I want to keep doing this? Thats the deeper work of therapy. The practical side is learning to set limits. Boundaries are powerful, but without definition, theyre just amorphous.
So maybe run an experiment: For two nights a week, log off at six, not check email until morning, and see what happens. Can you try that for a month? Slowly, you realize the world doesnt fall apartand that you can build a life more in your control. But it starts with asking: Why do I do this? Is it just habit? What are my real values?
For years, I had terrible flying anxiety, especially when my kids were little. As a consultant, I flew weeklyit was stressful, every boundary crossed. On top of fearing the plane, I carried mom guilt: my kids were home with the nanny, I missed milestones, I felt like a terrible mother. But when I clarified my values, I saw that providing for my children and running a socially impactful business mattered deeply to me. Flying aligned with those values. That shift helped me move past the anxiety. It was hard, but powerfuland thats the kind of clarity values work can bring.
JW: The inner critic drives high achievers, and for many parents that critic is especially loudboth at work and at home. How do you recommend quieting that voice without losing motivation or drive?
MAM: One of my biggest aha momentsthanks to Judd Brewers workwas realizing that anxiety is a habit. Our inner critic, what I call the voice, is also a habit. Weve relied on it so long that it runs on autopilot. Same with our cognitive distortionsthey become familiar companions. As anxious achievers, we even use them as fuel. But breaking those habits is transformative.
Take Newton Chang, a Google executive and world champion powerlifter. During the pandemic, he faced a serious mental health crisis. He told me that for most of his life he woke up every morning hearing, Youre lazy. Not from his parents, but from this ingrained voice. Of course, he wasnt lazybut in the pandemic, when he felt responsible for solving the unsolvable, the habit broke him down. He finally saw that this old pattern wasnt serving him and had to let it go.
The work starts with noticing when the voice kicks in, naming it, maybe even giving it a character so it feels less like a part of you. The goal is to get to that place of choice: Do I listen to it because it motivates me, or do I tell it to shut up?
And its also okay to acknowledge that this is part of who you are. I love Dr. Basima Tewfiks research at MIT on imposter syndrome. Shes shown that people with imposter feelings often outperform peers and are rated as more interpersonally effectivebecause they try harder and are more attuned. In one study, doctors with imposter feelings had better bedside manner. So sometimes, reframing matters: maybe this anxious, inner-critic-driven part of me isnt all bad. Maybe its also whats helped me get here.
JW: If you could give one message to working mothers who feel like they’re holding everything together on the surface while managing intense anxiety underneath, what would it be?
MAM: This too shall pass. Anxiety feels urgent because your body believes its under threatits just trying to protect you. But the truth is, it will pass, and you will get through it. As a mom with kids heading into high school and one still in elementary, I look back and hink: it all went so fast, and I wasted too much time on guilt and anxiety.
It sounds cliché, but dont let anxiety cannibalize your time. Give yourself moments free of it. Remember: anxiety is an emotion, not the truthand like all emotions, it passes. If it doesnt, get help.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
Suddenly, as office buildings closed during the pandemic and millions of parents started working from home, many of us breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, no more commuting. More time with our kids. A once in a lifetime opportunity to concentrate on career and family with fewer hassles. Answer emails while cooking pasta sauce, join team Zoom in yoga pants, and always be there for bedtime. But five years into the remote-hybrid experiment, the arrangement is tougher than we expected. Yes, this flexibility has given us choices that did not exist before, but its also erased the lines so much that many working parents arent even sure if its freedom they are experiencing or just a different kind of trap.
Flexibility: Leash or a lifeline
This new way of working was liberating at first. Parents could make school pick up without getting the side-eye from coworkers. Doctors appointments for your child, no problem; just log back on after dinner. It was a way of easing the stress that we feel from the need to be perfect in the workplace and at home. The problem is that the work never actually stops. The laptop on the kitchen table is both a liberation and a ball and chain. Slack messages buzz through the entire swim meet, and the always on culture makes boundaries virtually disappear.
This flexibility, surprisingly, has made life more difficult for some parents. If you can work from wherever, you end up working all the time. The mental load (doctors appointments, playdates, meal planning) is now just part of the workday. And having it all now means you do it all at the same time.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2015\/08\/erikaaslogo.png","headline":"Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters","description":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting. ","substackDomain":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
The messy reality of integration
In theory, hybrid work offers the best of both worlds: days at home for focus and days in the office for face time and collaboration. But in reality, it can feel like living in two worlds at once. Parents ping-pong between spreadsheets and science projects, quarterly reports and permission slips. Life has become a constant state of multitasking. The cost: more burnout and guilt than you had before. You are working and you are parenting. You are parenting, but your mind is on your inbox.
Lets face it: having it all was always a set up. It suggests that you can have a fulfilling career and blissful family life, and that you should. If you dont, youve failed. Unfortunately, remote and hybrid work didnt dismantle this myth. It repackaged it. We have gone from work-life balance to the fantasy of work-life integration. But integration does not mean harmony. Parents say they have longer days, shorter tempers, and a feeling they are failing at both work and life.
Getting real about what matters
The real question isnt whether parents can have it all. Its how we redefine what all even means. Does it mean being equally devoted to quarterly earnings and the bedtime routine? Or can we accept that sometimes a big presentation takes priority and sometimes its okay to step back for our family? We should give ourselves permission to choose what matters the most in different seasons of our lives. Employers must step up too by setting clearer norms about availability, respecting true off-hours, and offering flexibility that is functional, not suffocating.
The reality is nobody has it all. Not the CEO. Not the stay-at-home parent. And certainly not the hybrid worker. What we can have is a life that reflects what matters most to us. It might be messy, and it definitely wont be perfect, but at least it will be realistic.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2015\/08\/erikaaslogo.png","headline":"Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters","description":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting. ","substackDomain":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
