Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Below, Ben Swire shares five key insights from his new book, Safe Danger: An Unexpected Method for Sparking Connection, Finding Purpose, and Inspiring Innovation. Ben is a former Design Lead at the innovation firm IDEO and co-founder of Make Believe Works, a team-building company that uses creative activities to accelerate connection, deepen trust, and fuel collaboration. His methods have helped organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to public school districts, build healthy, productive workplace cultures. What’s the big idea? Most of us think of risks as a threat to our safety. But what if they’re the best way to create the kind of safety that matters most—…

Corporate culture isn’t built by policies. It’s built by moments—the unscripted experiences that catch us off guard, bring us closer, and quietly shape how we show up for one another. But many efforts labeled “culture-building,” including onboarding programs, leadership retreats, and all-hands meetings, still feel like productivity theater: tightly scheduled and heavy on performance. Today, it’s worth asking whether that model has simply run its course. Consider this: what if the future of culture-building isn’t about managing people, but about designing experiences that allow people to feel something real together? What if awe, story, and shared creativity weren…

AI can knock out an impressive amount of tedious, everyday busywork. It can take on creative tasks, too. But the fundamental question remains: should it? As AI use within organizations reaches new heights, companies are also recognizing its limitations—and, in some cases, pulling back. Consider Duolingo, the language-learning company that announced it would gradually eliminate freelance writers and translators, replacing them with AI-generated content. After public backlash and user reports that the AI-produced lessons felt formulaic and lacked cultural nuance, Duolingo clarified its position. “I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do . . . I see it as a…

One of the most daunting tasks when you start a new job is developing trust with your new colleagues. Whether you’re new to the world of work or an experienced hand, you are still starting at ground-zero with your new colleagues when you walk in the door. While you’re likely to get the benefit of the doubt, you still need to develop a rapport quickly and help people to see that you can be relied on. Here are four suggestions to get you started. 1. Find a couple of quick wins You want your new colleagues to see that you can be successful at your work. Unfortunately, many projects can take a while to complete and determining whether those projects are successful …

The average American checks their phone over 140 times a day, clocking an average of 4.5 hours of daily use, with 57% of people admitting they’re “addicted” to their phone. Tech companies, influencers, and other content creators compete for all that attention, which has incentivized the rise of misinformation. Considering this challenging information landscape, strong critical reading skills are as relevant and necessary as they’ve ever been. Unfortunately, literacy continues to be a serious concern. Reading comprehension scores have continued to decline. The majority of Gen Z parents are not reading aloud to their young children because they view it as a chore. M…

Every working parent has that one thing keeping them from completely losing it. Some have the Mary Poppins-like nanny who knows exactly when to show up with wet wipes and organic muffins. Others swear by meal kits, color-coded Google calendars, or chore charts their family actually follows (unicorn families, basically). For me? It’s a group text. Not glamorous, not particularly organized, but it’s my lifeline. This is where playdates get arranged, last-minute pickup emergencies get solved, and critical intel on the latest stomach bug gets dropped. It’s also where I can admit, “I fed my kids popcorn and blueberries for dinner,” and instead of side-eye, I get heart …

Experience sharpens judgment, boosts productivity, and teaches lessons that only come from years on the job. Yet, despite its value, companies continue to undervalue those with the most experience to offer. Employers have spent the past decade championing inclusivity. Yet, our latest survey of 1,000 Americans over 50 by DateMyAge found that 73% of over-50s feel treated as if their best years are already behind them, and 62% believe that employers have written them off professionally. Ageism isn’t just a workplace issue. It’s a cultural one. We wanted to explore it more deeply to challenge the idea that life and ambition have an expiration date. Age bias, som…

As you sift among the various options for your short-term investments, keep these key items on your dashboard: yield, guarantees, liquidity and your individual situation. The short-term investments that promise the highest yields often come with at least some risk and/or constraints on your daily access to funds. It may be that you’re just looking for the highest safe yield and don’t care that much about liquidity. Or maybe having ready access to your funds is the name of the game. Also think through whether you value an ironclad guarantee or are willing to go without in exchange for a potentially higher yield. Some cash instruments are fully FDIC-insured, while o…

Recently, after decades of paying high fees for the aging photo-sharing site Flickr, I finally moved all my images to Google Photos. It saved money and offered advanced features, like very accurate search results. But uploading years of pictures triggered the dreaded warning that I was approaching the storage limit of my Google account, which also holds Gmail, documents, spreadsheets, and other files. Cloud storage (be it Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox) is just one more in a growing list of subscriptions we all face, such as video and music streaming services, online magazines or newspapers, newsletters, Patreon sponsorship, and often just the right to keep using so…

If your team can’t function without you in the room, you don’t have a team, you have a dependency. Too many business owners confuse supporting their team with carrying them. Instead of learning how to coach team members, they do the work for them. They jump into every problem, solve every issue, and answer every question themselves. It feels like good leadership, but it’s actually just bottlenecking in disguise. The goal of leadership isn’t to be the smartest person in the room. Instead, it’s to build a room full of people who can think, solve, and act without you. That shift, from problem-solver to coach, is one of the most important moves a business owner can make.…

The 2001 Tilda Swinton film The Deep End features a scene that has stuck with me for nearly 25 years, even though I’ve forgotten almost everything else about the movie. Swinton’s character is being blackmailed for $50,000 and is given 24 hours to come up with the cash. Although her character is shown to live a comfortable, upper-middle-class life, she spends a stressful day on the phone trying to find the money—and she misses the deadline. As a budding money nerd, I wondered what I would do in her situation. I had some go-to sources of cash for smaller financial emergencies, but there was a limit to how much I could gather quickly. The thing is, everyone has a lim…

The room is silent. All eyes are on you. Your heart races, but as you take a deep breath, confidence replaces the nerves. You begin to speak, not just to inform, but to captivate. Public speaking isn’t an innate talent; it’s a skill that can be mastered. With the right techniques, anyone can transform into a compelling speaker. Research shows that 77% of people experience anxiety around public speaking, yet confidence and clarity can be learned. I frequently speak publicly, addressing teams of executives, industry leaders, and students. As a seasoned financial services executive with two decades of leadership experience and the two-time author of Wisdom on the Way to…

Nothing strikes fear in a leader’s heart more than an upcoming announcement. Yet big changes and announcements are the turning point for many organizations. Whether its layoffs, acquisitions, launches, or reorganizations, the pressure to “get it right” is real. Company performance, team morale, retention, and public image are all on the line. Unfortunately, most leaders rely on advisers and experts when it comes to how, when, and what to communicate. Well-meaning attorneys, publicists, or CFOs typically water down the message, and the company ends up with something that is factual but uninspiring. Oftentimes, that message is also ambiguous with no plan, next steps, or…

I can tell within two sentences if ChatGPT wrote your email. It sounds like every other one I’ve read today. Professionally mediocre. Perfectly bland tone. Strategic use of “leverage.” Transitions so smooth they may as well be butter slathered on a biscuit. As for what it doesn’t have? You. No sauce, no flavor, no quirks. I work with entrepreneurs and leaders on their marketing and communication, and it’s true: more and more, people continue to polish away anything distinctive (then wonder why no one responds). Your pitch deck sounds like their pitch deck sounds like that other person’s pitch deck. Your LinkedIn post? Could’ve been written by literal…

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Virgin lithium mining is a focal point for the U.S. and is necessary for the nation’s growth in the critical minerals market. Yet, there is another primary source to secure key battery materials (lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese), and that is recycling end-of-life and scrap batteries. Domestic sourcing is crucial to expanding our manufacturing efforts, and it’s imperative …

Working abroad might be just what your career—and personal life—needs. It exposes you (and loved ones) to new, different, and potentially more fulfilling ways of living. It expands your worldview. And it builds skills and a reputation that can serve you well in your field down the road. Marissa Andrada, who’s managed people operations for dispersed teams at major organizations including Kate Spade, Starbucks, Red Bull, and Universal Studios, recalls one American employee she convinced to take on a role in Hong Kong running human resources for the Asia-Pacific region. When the woman returned to the states after her assignment was over, she quickly moved up to manage g…

Below, Melissa Bernstein shares five key insights from her new book, The Heart of Entrepreneurship: Crafting Your Authentic Recipe for Success. Bernstein founded a toy company, Melissa & Doug, with her husband, in 1988. In 2021, they launched their second company, Lifelines, a wellness brand offering sensory products to manage stress and enhance well-being. She is the entrepreneur-in-residence for the Inner MBA certification program created by Sounds True, LinkedIn, and Wisdom 2.0. She is also cofounder of Duke University’s Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs program. What’s the big idea? As we age, many of us lose touch with the childlike curiosity and wonder…

When you have work life balance and fulfillment, you’re set up not only for success, but also for happiness. The big questions though, are about how you can find the best approach to work and life based on where you are in your journey, based on what’s unique about you, and based on what you find most important. The work-life mix is critically important. In fact, a survey of 26,000 people in five countries by Randstad found that for 85%, work-life balance was the most important element that people were looking for in both current and future jobs—a critical feature for their satisfaction. Importantly, this is the first time in the survey’s 22-year history that work-lif…

Early in my career, a colleague and I made a shared commitment one summer to eat healthier. Salads. Smoothies. The full routine. Like many well-intentioned plans, our discipline began to fade after a few weeks. Eventually, we introduced what we jokingly called Grease Wednesdays, a weekly cheat day as a reward for all our good behavior. Every Wednesday, one of us would head out to grab fast food, and we’d hide away in a small boardroom to indulge in our shared lack of nutritional discipline. At first, it was just the two of us, chatting with laptops closed and fries on the table. And then coworkers began peeking into whatever boardroom we were in, curious about the…

We’re facing a career confidence crisis. Work is changing fast, yet many employees feel stuck. At LinkedIn, our data shows workforce confidence has dropped to a five-year low, and only 15% of employees say their manager has supported them with career planning in the past six months. Managers can play a big role in righting the ship—helping employees build the new skills they need to stay relevant and develop into future leaders. But this requires a fundamental shift: transforming them from task-overseers to coaches developing talent and sparking the best ideas from their teams. There are some key steps any company can take now to develop a culture of coaching that sta…

Culture does not scale linearly with revenue or headcount —it requires intentionality the faster you grow. When I joined DPR Construction in the early 1990s, we were a small startup with a shared vision. Today, we have over 13,000 employees worldwide. Along the way, we’ve learned that sustaining culture through growth isn’t automatic—it takes clarity, intention, and continual reinforcement. With growth, we faced a familiar challenge many companies do: How could we preserve the cultural core we started with as a smaller company as we grew to an organization of thousands of people spread across the globe? Company culture is often described as intangible; however, li…

What are the qualities of a great team? You’ve probably been taught that team success requires building trust, fostering psychological safety, and cultivating a unified mindset. Seems logical. You might have learned that consensus is important and hierarchies are bad. Okay. You’ve undoubtedly been given that old chestnut, “There’s no I in team.” A classic. Team building 101. It’s conventional wisdom, and yet it completely misses the paradox of teams: While companies often focus on merging everyone into a single homogeneous entity, truly great teams embrace the distinct, diverse roles and talents of their team members. Every high-performing group in an organization wil…

As you have probably heard, most of human history, civility was not the default setting. Societies were rougher, hierarchies more brutal, and interpersonal interactions often governed by blunt displays of power and overt physical aggression rather than kind or cordial exchanges. In medieval societies, for instance, everyday interactions were far less restrained by norms of politeness. Status determined how you were treated, and those with power often exercised it quite openly. Rudeness, intimidation, and direct confrontation were not social faux pas so much as ordinary features of life in rigidly stratified societies. Fortunately, we have come a long way. Today, succe…

Annoying peers are hard enough to deal with. Things get even more complicated when the annoying person is your boss. As with peers, there are several ways that a boss can be annoying. Unfortunately, you have to tread lightly with many (though not all) bosses. To be clear, the focus here is on annoying bosses, not toxic ones. A boss who is a narcissist, a harasser, or who sows mistrust isn’t just annoying, they’re bad for you and the organization. I’m going discuss four things that may seem petty, but if you start dreading your engagements with your boss (or resenting them for their foibles), it can come back to hurt your working relationship. The cipher Some p…