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On Monday evening at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York Citys last-standing mayoral candidatesZohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwatook the stage to address their plans to meet the needs of Black women in New York should they take on the role. New Yorks mayoral election has captured global attention, with an international audience deeply invested in the outcome after newcomer and current state Assembly member Mamdani beat former Gov. Cuomo as the Democratic nominee in June. Noticeably absent was the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams. The forum took place on the heels of Adams dropping his bid for mayoral reelection just one day prior, bringing renewed interest in the battle to win the hearts of New Yorkersor at least their votes. The event was organized by The Links Inc., an international service nonprofit for African American women; the Higher Heights Leadership Fund; the National Action Network; the National Urban League; and the New York Urban League, and it took place at the Apollo Stages at the Victoria, where it was open to the public. The importance of our voices in todays world is crucial,” said Jamila Beckford, president of the Greater Bronx chapter of The Links. The group tapped NY1 news anchor Cheryl Wills to interview each mayoral candidate on how they intended to address various issues that are uniquely experienced by Black womenparticularly topics related to healthcare, domestic violence, entrepreneurial efforts, and the workforce. Interestingly, the forum was devoid of face-to-face contact between the candidates: They were individually brought before the audience to participate in a series of 20-minute-long interviews. [Photo: Courtesy of Shahar Azran for the Apollo] On housing Housing insecurity is a major challenge experienced by Black women. When asked about his plans to secure safe and affordable housing, Sliwa suggested opening the 8,000 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartments that are currently unoccupiedan idea Wills was quick to shut down, pointing out how the empty apartments are dilapidated and therefore unhabitable. Sliwa replied by stating that he would devise plans for New Yorkers to become homeowners, particularly for apartments they had resided in for years. I think I know what can be done, and the fiscal limitations for what cant be done, he said. Mamdani, whose mayoral campaign has championed a rent freeze for two million New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments, reiterated these plans and points to how such a tactic would impact Black families. The previous mayoral admin did it three times, he said. We know its a question of political will. He added that affordability isnt just about tenants, but landlords and homeowners, pointing to the issue of deed thefts and his plans to protect homeowners. Cuomos solution was to build more housing, though Wills clarified that new housing was usually priced at market rate What we are doing now is destroying historically Black communities with gentrifiers, where people have to move out because they are being priced out of their neighborhoods, Cuomo said. [Photo: Courtesy of Shahar Azran for The Apollo] On the workplace and leadership Wills pressed each candidate about their take on the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies by the Trump administration, as well as the purging of government jobs, which, among other factors, has reportedly led to an exodus of 300,000 Black women from the U.S. workforce. A concern for many in the room was the visibility of Black women in senior leadership positions. Mamdani, often critical of Eric Adamss tenure as mayor, made a positive observation about his former opponent’s staff: His leadership team looks like the city. When we speak about the necessity of excellence and diversity and a team that looks like the city that it serves, that its intentional, Mamdani added. Emphasizing the need for vocational school and training, Sliwa said, Obviously, qualified Black women have to be prioritized. Theyre raising families for a future generation. Wills rebutted by mentioning that many Black women are highly educated beyond vocational school. As for Cuomo, he stressed that his administration would look like New York City. I believe deeply in the power of Black women, he said. In response to a question about widening pay gaps between white men and Black women, he insisted that lawsuits were the answer. [Photo: Courtesy of Shahar Azran for The Apollo] On mental health Wills mentioned that domestic and intimate partner violence against women are especially high among Black women. When asked what he would do to protect this vulnerable population, Sliwa stated that sending social workers is not the answeran apparent dig at Mamdani, who has previously shared this strategy as part of his public safety plans. You team up police with social workersif a man is continually abusive, he has to be out of the house, he has to go through therapy, Sliwa said, citing his experience as founder of the Guardian Angels. The volunteer-based organization enlists people to defend against crime on the city’s public transit system and, most recently, perform wellness checks on homeless people. Mamdani, in his response, stated plainly, One of my primary responsibilities is to uplift the existing agendas. The Trump administrations deliberate takedown of DEI efforts and its subsequent impact on the Black community was a charged topic, and one that the candidates appeared aligned on pushing back against. When asked how he would deal with Trumps attempts to meddle in local politics, Mamdani said, I would remind them who I work for, which is the people of New York City. Cuomo, who has dealt with Trumps many threats during his prior tenure as New York State governor, said Let him come with his demands, and well say hell no, we won’t go. New York’s mayoral election is on November 4. Most polls show Mamdani in the lead by a significant margin.
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Hello there, and welcome once again to Fast Companys Plugged In. For something that continues to suck up so much of the worlds attention, social networking has not exactly been a font of wild innovation in recent years. Its big names are all up there in years and showing their age: Facebook is 21, Twitter is 19. Instagram is 15, Snapchat is 14. Newer entrants, such as BeReal, rarely live up to their early great expectations. Even Bluesky, where many of us have found a home after fleeing the Elon Muskified version of Twitter, isnt growing at its old clip. So I was intrigued when two new social networking experiences debuted in rapid succession in late September: Metas Vibes and OpenAIs Sora. Thanks to the fact that both focus on letting people share AI-generated imagery, they compete directly with each other. But their all-AI format also sets them apart from existing social networks, where generative AI is most often a distraction from human contact, not the main attraction. Personally, I like the idea of AI being cordoned off into its own social app. Most examples of the technology showing up in other social feeds have a dystopian tinge, from Twitters Grok bot going full Hitler to the maudlin deepfakes that have recently become an unwelcome element of my Facebook time. (For some reason, Paul McCartney stars in many of the newest onesin one instance shown dolefully strumming a guitar at Charlie Kirks funeral.) Plenty of my friends get downright surly when they encounter AI on their feeds; to avoid making them unhappy, I have gone cold turkey on sharing it. Isolated in its own apps, however, AI imagery only gets exposed to people who want to see it. And everyone who does see it will understand that its syntheticor so I hope. While I was waiting to snag an invite code for the Sora appa requirement to try it at the momentI dived into Vibes, which is not an app unto itself. Instead, its an element of the Meta AI app, which also includes a general-purpose chatbot and serves as a companion for the Meta-powered smart glasses from Ray-Ban and Oakley. Meta is billing Vibes as an early preview and says additional personalization and creation tools are in the works. In its debut incarnation, Vibes doesnt do all that much. You can enter prompts to create brief AI videos, add music, and then post them to the Vibes feed (or Instagram or Facebookalthough I kind of hope you wont). A Discover feed lets you flip through clips posted by other users, TikTok style, and theres a remix option that enables you to modify those clips and reshare them. I cheerfully admit that I found thumbing my way through Vibes mildly entertaining in a hypnotic, untaxing way. Ultimately, though, it felt a little like snacking on Chex Mixunrelenting sameness, packaged as variety. Little about the videos I saw felt like an expression of individual creativity: I lost track of the number of buttery-smooth tracking shots of obsessively detailed, Pixar-esque orange monsters I saw. The image-generating algorithmsnot the humans typing the promptsare the stars here. Which brings us back to Sora. Its biggest differentiator from Vibes is that you can create a cameo digitized version of yourself and make it the main character of your AI clips. You can also make your cameo available for incorporation into your friends videos, or even ones credited by the entire Sora community. Moreover, cameos and other characters in Sora videos talk; in Vibes, audio is limited to music you pick from its library. Once I got into Sora, it took only a minute or two of exposure to realize that the experience it offers is vastly richer than Vibes. Its clips arent just demos of what the technology can dotheyre wacky 10-second mini-movies, sometimes with multiple shots, that occasionally provoked me to literally LOL. Thanks to cameos and OpenAIs decision to allow depiction of copyrighted property unless its owners explicitly request otherwise, the cast of characters is dazzling: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Pikachu, SpongeBob, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Betty White, Mister Rogers, and several tech journalists of my acquaintance all made multiple appearances in my feed. Just in its first few days, Sora seems to have spawned a billion memes, such as a dog being pulled over for speeding, that users riff on by remixing them. In remixes I saw, the driver was a fish, a cow, a giraffe, and Dora the Explorer. No equivalent kindling of community-based humor seemed to be going on over at Vibes. In other words, Sora feels far more like a killer app with a truly social angle than Vibes. Its hard to imagine that Metawhich turned imitating (and sometimes improving upon) Snapchat into Instagrams entire modus operandiisnt working furiously on similar functionality. But even if it catches up, OpenAI got there first. Which means that it also has to worry about its app causing problems that the current, more anodyne Vibes probably wont. To its credit, OpenAI has clearly done a lot of thinking on that topic. When I signed into Sora for the first time, I got a full-screen disclaimer: You are about to enter a creative world of AI-generated content. Some videos may depict people you recognize, but the actions and events shown are not real. I wasnt able to create videos of living celebritiesI tried Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, and Bad Bunnyexcept for Altman, who created a cameo of himself and set it to allow open usage. Some baseline of good taste is being imposed: My attempt to create a clip of my own cameo punching out people resulted in an odd effect where the blows didnt quite land. The most worrisome misuse of Sora might involve it being used as a tool for deepfake-assisted bullying. OpenAI says its putting limits on teenagers use of the app, including tighter rules for cameo appearances. You can even see other peoples unpublished draft videos if they depict your cameo, a pretty important measure given that its possible to download Sora videos for use elsewhere without ever posting them in the app. (They carry Sora watermarks, indicating their provenance and fictional nature.) No matter how hard OpenAI works to keep Sora healthy, its tough to imagine there wont be instances of users with bad intent successfully jumping over its guardrails. Sora-generated slop could also overwhelm other social networks where AI is less welcome. Or maybe the app will simply grow tiresome once its novelty has worn off. For now, Sora is easily the most interesting consumer product that OpenAI has come up with since ChatGPT. More significantly, its the rare new social network that feels like it might have legs. Im @harrymccracken thereand hope it remains a silly ingredient in my social-media diet for the foreeeable future. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company ChatGPT can now spend your money for youIt’s a huge deal for users, brands, and the future of agentic AI. Read More How the White House redesigned its website to blame Democrats for the shutdownWH.gov transformed into a billboard for a government shutdown publicity moment. Read More One in five Americans now regularly get news on TikTok, up sharply from 2020‘No social media platform we’ve studied has experienced faster growth in news consumption.’ Read More Peloton is pivoting to AI. Here’s how it’s using custom-built models to improve your workoutThe embattled at-home fitness company is raising its prices and using machine learning to personalize members’ workouts. Read More Why Amazon went all-in on balls for its new line of speakersThree years in the making, Amazon’s new spherical Echo Studio and Echo Dot Max are built to raise the bar of Amazon’s audio quality and usher in the next generation of smart home. Read More Who controls the machines that control Artificial Intelligence?The hidden arms race of AI supercomputers. Read More
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The economic consequences of the current federal government shutdown hinge critically on how long it lasts. If it is resolved quickly, the costs will be small, but if it drags on, it could send the U.S. economy into a tailspin. Thats because the economy is already in a precarious state, with the labor market struggling, consumers losing confidence and uncertainty mounting. As an economist who studies public finance, I closely follow how government policies affect the economy. Let me explain how a prolonged shutdown could affect the economyand why it could be a tipping point to recession. Direct impacts from a government shutdown The partial government shutdown began on Oct. 1, 2025, as Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a deal on funding some portion of the federal government. A partial shutdown means that some funding bills have been approved, entitlement spending continues since it does not rely on annual appropriations, and some workers are deemed necessary and stay on the job unpaid. While most of the 20 shutdowns that occurred from 1976 through 2024 lasted only a few days to a week, there are signs the current one may not be resolved so quickly. The economy would definitely take a direct hit to gross domestic product from a lengthy shutdown, but its the indirect impacts that could be more harmful. The most recent shutdown, which extended over the 20182019 winter holidays and lasted 35 days, was the longest in U.S. history. After it ended, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the partial shutdown delayed approximately US$18 billion in federal discretionary spending, which translated into an $11 billion reduction in real GDP. Most of that lost output was made up later once the shutdown ended, the CBO noted. It is estimated that the permanent losses were about $3 billiona drop in the bucket for the $30 trillion U.S. economy. GREAT FALLS, MARYLAND – OCTOBER 02: The closed visitor center at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park is seen on the second day of the federal government shutdown on October 02, 2025 in Great Falls, Maryland. National parks are remaining partially open and with limited services during the shutdown. The U.S. federal government shut down much of it’s operations on Wednesday after Congress failed to pass a bipartisan funding bill. [Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images] The indirect and more lasting impacts The full impact may depend to a large extent on the psychology of the average consumer. Recent data suggests that consumer confidence is falling as the stagnation in the labor market becomes more clear. Business confidence has been mixed as the manufacturing index continues to indicate the sector is in contraction, while other business confidence measures indicate mixed expectations about the future. If the shutdown drags on, the psychological effects may lead to a larger loss of confidence among consumers and businesses. Given that consumer spending accounts for 70% of economic activity, a fall in consumer confidence could signal a turning point in the economy. These indirect effects are in addition to the direct impact of lost income for federal workers and those that operate on federal contracts, which leads to reductions in consumption and production. The risk of significant government layoffs, beyond the usual furloughs, could deepen the economic damage. Extensive layoffs would shift the losses from a temporary delay to a more permanent loss of income and human capital, reducing aggregate demand and potentially increasing unemployment spillovers into the private sector. In short, while shutdowns that end quickly tend to inflict modest, mostly recoverable losses, a protracted shutdownespecially one involving layoffs of a significant number of government workerscould inflict larger, lasting impacts on the economy. US economy is already in distress This is all occurring as the U.S. labor market is flashing warnings. Payrolls grew by only 22,000 in August, with July and June estimates revised down by 21,000. This follows payroll growth of only 73,000 in July, with May and June estimates revised down by 258,000. In addition, preliminary annual revisions to the employment data show the economy gained 911,000 fewer jobs in the previous year than had been reported. Long-term unemployment is also rising, with 1.8 million people out of work for more than 27 weeksnearly a quarter of the total number of unemployed individuals. At the same time, AI adoption and cost-cutting could further reduce labor demand, while an aging workforce and lower immigration shrink labor supply. Fed Chair Jerome Powell refers to this as a curious kind of balance in the labor market. In other words, the job market appears to have come to a screeching halt, making it ifficult for recent graduates to find work. Recent graduate unemploymentthat is, those who are 22 to 27 years oldis now 5.3% relative to the total unemployment rate of 4.3%. The latest data from the ADP employment report, which measures only private company data, shows that the economy lost 32,000 jobs in September. Thats the biggest decline in 2 years. While thats worrying, economists like me usually wait for the official Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers to come out to confirm the accuracy of the payroll processing firms report. The government data that was supposed to come out on Oct. 3 might have offered a possible counterpoint to the bad ADP news, but due to the shutdown BLS will not be releasing the report. Problems Fed rate cuts cant fix This will only increase the uncertainty surrounding the health of the U.S. economy. And it adds to the uncertainty created by on-again, off-again tariffs as well as the newly imposed tariffs on lumber, furniture and other goods. Against this backdrop, the Fed is expected to lower interest rates at least two more times this year to stimulate consumer and business spending following its September quarter-point cut. This raises the risk of reigniting inflation, but the cooling labor market is a more immediate concern for the Fed. While lower short-term rates may help at the margin, I believe they cannot resolve the deeper challenges, such as massive government deficits and debt, tight household budgets, a housing affordability crisis and a shrinking labor force. The question now is not will the Fed cut rates, because it likely will, but whether that cut will help, particularly if the shutdown lasts weeks or more. Monetary policy alone cannot overcome the uncertainty created by tariffs, the lack of fiscal restraint, companies focused on cutting costs by replacing people with technology, the impact of the shutdown and the fears of consumers about the future. Lower interest rates may buy time, but they wont solve these structural problems facing the U.S. economy. John W. Diamond is the director of the Center for Public Finance at the Baker Institute at Rice University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
A comedy festival in the capital of Saudi Arabia has provided golden material for comedians who declined the offer on principleor wouldve done, if theyd received an invite in the first place. The debut Riyadh Comedy Festival, running Sept. 26 to Oct. 9, bills itself as the biggest comedy festival in the world. In the line up of more than 50 comedians, some like Bill Burr and Pete Davidson, whose firefighter father was killed in the 9/11 attacks, came as a shock and disappointment to fans. The irony is also not lost that many of these same comics, who have publicly railed against cancel culture and preached about freedom of speech, sold out to a regime that allegedly provided a list of deal terms for appearing at the event, including forbidding any criticism of religion or the Saudi royals. Online, fellow comedians quickly jumped on the bit. Sometimes in order to fight the power, you need to be paid by the power, quipped comedian Vinny Thomas, who often goes viral for his social media skits. New York-based comedian Gianmarco Soresi wrote on X: If you do the Riyadh Comedy Festival and dont tell a joke that gets you imprisoned by the monarchy then what was even the point of having Trump on your podcast? Shaan Baig, who regularly posts impressions on TikTok, offered one of comedian Aziz Ansari. At first I was like oh noooo, he says. But then they showed me the money and I was like, um, who cares about dead journalists? Get me to the desert. Representatives for Ansari, Burr, and Davidson did not respond to request for comment at the time of publication. Marc Maron, host of the WTF podcast, joked that it was easy for him to take the high road on this one given he was not asked to perform. He also questioned how the festival would be promoted. From the folks that brought you 9/11, he riffed in a stand-up bit posted to Instagram last week. Two weeks of laughter in the desert, dont miss it. Jokes aside, Human Rights Watch called on the performers who chose to partake to publicly urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists, suggesting that the Saudi government is using the festival to deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations. But, as comedian Zach Woods said on Instagram: Name one comedian who hasnt whored themself out to a dictator.
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Below, Michelle MACE Curran shares five key insights from her new book, The Flipside: How to Invert Your Perspective and Turn Fear into Your Superpower. Michelle spent over a decade as a fighter pilot and served as the Lead Solo Pilot for the Thunderbirds, the U.S. Air Forces elite demonstration team. She has nearly 2,000 hours of F-16 flying time and flew combat missions in Afghanistan. Known for her upside-down maneuvers, she has inspired audiences at airshows and flyovers like the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, and Indy 500. Whats the big idea? Mace spent years operating in high-pressure environments, from combat situations to performing high-speed maneuvers in front of millions of people. But what also came with that career were the moments behind the scenes of self-doubt, the struggle to find her identity, the near misses, and the mental battles that came with the job. Much of what she learned to persevere and triumph as a fighter pilot applies to winning at life. 1. Your inner critic is just a voice, not a verdict. When I was a young, inexperienced fighter pilot, I lived with this constant fear that I didnt belong and wasnt good enough. Id walk into a briefing room and feel like everyone else had it together. Meanwhile, I was hyperaware of everything I said and did as I tried to live up to my idea of what the perfect fighter pilot was. This voice lives in all of usthat inner critictelling you that youre not ready, not enough, or dont have what it takes. It may sound a whole lot like the truth, but that voice is often just fear in disguise: fear of being seen, fear of failing, or fear of finally succeeding and not knowing what to do with it. I had to learn that my inner critic wasnt a signal to stop. It didnt mean I was in the wrong place. It was a sign that I was pushing into something that matteredsomething that was difficult, but worth doing. I used to think that courage would show up, make me feel ready, and then Id act. But courage comes after the action. So, when that inner critic chimes in, pause, acknowledge it, and then take one small, bold step despite it. Courage isnt the absence of doubt. Its action in the presence of it. It was a sign that I was pushing into something that matteredsomething that was difficult, but worth doing. I didnt get rid of my inner critic. I just stopped letting it drive. Even now, it still shows up before big decisions or at the start of new chapters, but Ive learned to recognize its tone. Its never curious. Its never kind. It always speaks in absolutes: youll never, you cant, you shouldnt. When I hear that voice now, I take it as a clue, not a command. Its a sign that Im stretching into something that matters. 2. One minute, one hour, one month. During an airshow in Columbia, I was flying my Thunderbird jet at 400 miles per hour, just a couple of thousand feet above a forest. Suddenly, I saw a flash of light, heard a loud thud, and felt the jet shake. I had just hit a bird. Later, Id find out it was a vulture with a six-foot wingspan, but in that moment, all I knew was that this was serious. I didnt know how bad the damage was. Was the engine okay? Would the aircraft keep flying? My adrenaline spiked, but I didnt panic. I fell back on a mental checklist that we drilled from day one in training: Maintain aircraft control (dont make it worse). Analyze the situation (what do I know?). Take proper action (what can I do about it?). First, I focused on flying the jet, checking my instruments, and communicating with the rest of the team. Not fixing, but assessing, then acting. I still use that same process when things go sideways in life, but I translate it like this: What do I need to do in the next one minute, one hour, and one month? One minute: pause, breathe. Just let yourself feel it. Ground yourself in your body. One hour: analyze, gather facts. Get support. One month: adjust your habits, actions, and mindset. Whether its a breakup, a layoff, or a deal falling through, you dont need to solve everything all at once. When a bird hits your jet or life just hits you hard, start with the next minute because how you respond in small windows determines how you navigate the big ones. That bird strike could have gone very differently. If I had let panic set the tempo, I could have turned a bad moment into a catastrophic one, and I think we do that in life, too. We try to sprint through things that need a steady walk. When something goes wrong, dont just ask, What should I do? Ask what matters most in this moment? What can wait, and what can I shift long-term? Thats how you lead yourself through pressurenot perfectly, but with purpose. 3. Wiggle your toes. Air refueling is when one airplane takes gas from another while flying alongside each other at over 300 miles per hour, thousands of feet in the air. It is a skill that requires practice and finesse, and it is stressful to learn. As a newbie pilot with little experience attempting this task, I was tense. My hand was going numb and I was gripping the stick like it owed me money, and every time I got close to the position where our airplanes would actually touch, Id overcorrect, become unstable, and be told to back up and try again. After one particularly bad flight, my instructor gave me this piece of advice: Mace, when you get close, dont forget to wiggle your toes. It sounded silly considering we were trained combat pilots flying $30 million aircraft, but on the next flight, I gave it a try. As I felt the stress build, I consciously moved my toes inside my boots, and it worked. That tiny movement disrupted the tension in my body. It made me breathe, relax, and refocus. When pressure rises, your instinct might be to grip tighter, but sometimes the best move is to loosen your hold. Wiggling my toes became a ritual, and not just in the jet, but anytime. Stress made me want to control everything too tightly. When pressure rises, your instinct might be to grip tighter, but sometimes the best move is to loosen your hold. Try wiggling your toes. Its a physical disruptor. It breaks the stress spiral. It buys you a moment to respond with intention instead of reacting under duress, and sometimes thats all you need to regain control, not by force, but by presence. 4. Call signs are earned, not chosen. In the fighter pilot world, we have nicknames that we refer to as call signs, and you do not get to pick yours. Its given to you, usually after a mistake you made as a young pilot. Mine came during basic fighter maneuvering. I got so focused on the wrong thing that I accidentally broke the sound barrierI was supersonic when I wasnt supposed to be, and didnt even realize it. I didnt even understand what had happened until after we landed and watched the cockpit recordings during our debrief. Not long after, I was officially named Mace (an acronym for MACH at circle entry). This wasnt a compliment. It was a reminder of a rookie mistake, and I onestly felt a lot of shame around it. Then I thought about how every single pilot in my unit had a call sign, even the most respected, the best, the most experienced. I realized that when youre doing something hard, no one gets by unscathed, and it wasnt perfection that led to success, but persistence. Our identities are often shaped by how we recover from missteps, not how we avoid them. That moment became part of my growth. I eventually owned it. I learned from it, and I flew smarter because of it. You might not get to control how every chapter of your story starts, but you do get to decide how it ends. I used to carry so much shame around that call sign, but then I realized it meant I was in the game. You dont get a call sign if youre sitting on the sidelines. You get one by showing up, getting it, and still coming back for more. All the people I looked up to had a moment theyd rather forget. Confidence doesnt come from never falling. It comes from proving to yourself that you can rise after you do. 5. Whats your go/no-go criteria? In aviation, we use the concept of go/no-go decisions. This is something you decide before the mission ever begins, not when things are falling apart. Before every flight, especially ones that push limits, you set your criteria. If the weather drops below a certain level, no go. If fuel hits this mark, go home. If the system isnt functioning, abort the mission. Why? Because once youre in the air, the variables increase, and so does the pressure. Youre emotionally invested, and thats when people make poor decisions. They press forward toward an objective and into danger because theyre already in motion. A great example from mountaineering is summit fever, when a team pushes ahead because that summit is so close, even though theyve already passed their turnaround time. Go/no-go keeps you honest and calm so that when chaos hits, you dont have to figure it out. You just follow the plan. Youre emotionally invested, and thats when people make poor decisions. Ive used this concept in my personal life. Whether business, relationships, or big goals, I try to set my limits and values before investing time, money, and energy. What am I willing to compromise on? When will I walk away or shift course? This is where the sunk cost fallacy kicks in. We tell ourselves that weve already come this far and invested too much to quit now, but that logic traps us in bad decisions. The time, energy, or money youve already spent is gone. What matters is whether continuing is still aligned with your values, safety, and mission. Go/no-go protects you from doubling down just to justify your investment. It gives you a way to honor your effort without letting it dictate your future so that when things deviate from the plan, you dont have to scramble to find clarity. Bold doesnt mean reckless, and quitting isnt the same as failing. Draw those go/no go lines before you need them because decisions made in calm are what guides you in chaos. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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