What's on Your Mind?

A decade ago, when Claire Burgi moved to New York City, she decided to cut meat out of her diet. The 33-year-old actor and audiobook narrator, who lives in Queens, grew up in California, where she’d seen the effects of climate change firsthand. She knew that meat consumption was a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions and that vegetarianism was a way to help conserve resources and reduce pollution. “When I was young, it rained a lot,” she says. “Now, it rains much less. All the fires are astoundingly horrific.” The December 2017 Thomas wildfire burned more than 280,000 acres in and around Burgi’s hometown of Ventura, just north of Los Angeles. “I just didn’t w…

Two in five Americans have fought with a family member about politics, according to a 2024 study by the American Psychiatric Association. One in five have become estranged over controversial issues, and the same percentage has “blocked a family member on social media or skipped a family event” due to disagreements. Difficulty working through conflict with those close to us can cause irreparable harm to families and relationships. What’s more, the inability to heal these relationships can be detrimental to physical and emotional well-being, and even longevity. Healing relationships often involve forgiveness—and sometimes we have the ability to truly reconcile. But …

At least three-quarters of the speaking invitations I get these days are about AI. But lately, they’re for different reasons. Companies used to bring me in under the assumption that artificial intelligence was going to change everything. So they’d ask me to talk about the jobless future, prompt engineering, or automating marketing online. Today, they’re asking a different kind of question: What went wrong? Where are the promised productivity gains? In other words, why isn’t AI helping our company do stuff? And if I were to answer honestly, I’d tell them the simple truth: It’s because you and your people don’t know what you want to do with it! This is not a technology…

A major winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow to parts of the East Coast this weekend. Amid freezing temperatures, many will be hunkering down and sipping hot cocoa by the fire or trying out new warming winter recipes. Others will be getting creative with an ingredient that won’t be in short supply: snow. “First snow of the year means SNOW CREAM,” one TikToker posted earlier this month. “This is literally my childhood,” another wrote in the caption of her video, combining fresh snow with milk, sugar, and vanilla to make a bowl of dessert. Other snow-based recipes that have gone viral in light of the recent weather include using snow as a way to freez…

The moment I rise in the morning, I check my phone. Bad habit, to be sure. But I know I’m not the only one. There is a message from an editor marked “urgent,” there is an email from the school reminding me it’s parent-visit morning, and a text from a fellow soccer mom making sure I remembered the time change for Sunday’s tournament. (I hadn’t). The day had barely started, and I already felt hopelessly behind. This is the reality for working parents everywhere. On any given day, we have many jobs: employee, caregiver, chauffeur, chef, boo-boo healer—and each has its own inbox. Once upon a time, we believed technology would make our lives easier. Instead, it taught us h…

Back on February 6th, 2017, a teenaged Sabrina Carpenter tweeted, “Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend.” Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend — Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) February 6, 2017 Now, nine years later, the pop star is doing exactly that—in the brand’s Super Bowl ad campaign. Created by agency BBDO New York, the teaser shows Carpenter treating her Pringles like a flower bouquet, plucking chips while saying, “He loves me, he loves me not . . .” For Pringles, the spot represents the perfect formula for celebrity partnership. “Our partner talent has to be a ge…

How much would you pay for a gray fleece? Yes, the type that’s ubiquitous in corporate cubicles and business-casual work conferences across America. What if it had the Miu Miu logo stitched on the left chest? If you said $2,500, you’d be on the money. Miu Miu’s $2,500 fleece sweatshirt, specifically in gray, has been trending online in recent months, spotted on celebs and featured in dozens of videos across social media platforms. You might think it looks like any other gray fleece. And you’d be right. Yet the Miu Miu version has inspired dupes and influenced people to unearth 4imprint jackets from their dad’s closet or old thrift finds to participate in the tr…

Snow has returned to the Philadelphia region, and along with it, the white residues on streets and sidewalks that result from the overapplication of deicers such as sodium chloride, or rock salt, as well as more modern salt alternatives. As an environmental scientist who studies water pollution, I know that much of the excess salt flows into storm drains and ultimately into area streams and rivers. For example, a citizen science stream monitoring campaign led by the Stroud Water Research Center in Chester County (about 40 miles west of Philadelphia) found that chloride concentrations in southeastern Pennsylvania streams remained higher than levels recommended by t…

You probably know filmmaker and actor Taika Waititi from directing work like the Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok or the Oscar-award-winning film Jojo Rabbit. What you might not know is that he’s also the creative mind behind multiple Old Spice ads, a bout of early 2010s PSAs for his home country of New Zealand, and some of the most iconic Super Bowl commercials of all time. From the early days of his career, between directing short films and appearing in acting gigs, Waititi has kept up a consistent cadence of ad work, ranging from spots for local names like the New Zealand Transport Agency to bigger brands like Samsung. Even as his Hollywood work has expanded, ad work r…

Last Saturday, more than six million people held their breath as Alex Honnold took his first step up Taipei 101. The Free Solo climber, who went on to ascend Taiwan’s tallest building without the safety of a rope and harness, drew crowds all around the building, as well as on Netflix, where the ascent was live-streamed as part of a show called Skyscraper Live. Some of these people had likely already watched Honnold scale the 3,000-foot rock wall of Yosemite’s El Capitan. But for many, the climber’s ascent up a man-made structure was likely an introduction to an altogether different kind of climbing: not on the face of a cliff, but the side of a building. This type…

From the outside, it looks like a generational standoff. Baby boomers are retiring earlier than expected, frustrated by workplace change, technology shifts, and growing tension with younger colleagues. At the same time, Gen Z talks openly about quitting jobs that feel misaligned or draining. Many leaders interpret this as a clash of values. Older workers cannot adapt. Younger workers lack commitment. The data tells a more complicated story. New research from Clari and Salesloft, conducted in partnership with Workplace Intelligence, surveyed 2,000 U.S. sellers and sales leaders across industries. The study found that 19% of baby boomers are planning to retire early…

Last year was a brutal one for layoffs, with large cuts coming from Amazon, UPS, Microsoft and Verizon. And as things get rolling for 2026, it’s looking like this year won’t be any less uncertain for workers. This week has seen a slew of sizable job cuts from a wide variety of companies. As of Thursday morning, more than 61,650 positions have been eliminated. The actual number is likely a fair bit higher as many of the companies announcing layoffs—such as Shopify, Expedia, and Vimeo—did not release the number of jobs that were impacted. Dow Inc. was the most recent well-known company to announce cuts. On Thursday, the chemical maker said it would do away with…

It’s Friday afternoon. Your inbox looks like a battleground, your calendar is a collage of back-to-back calls, and the strategic plan you built last quarter already feels outdated. You’ve spent the week reacting, extinguishing fires, and juggling unexpected demands you didn’t plan for. You’ve been busy, but not necessarily productive. You’ve managed the chaos, but you haven’t had space to lead through it. This is the trap many leaders find themselves in today. Our attention is consumed by the urgent, leaving almost no cognitive room for the deep thinking, creativity, and strategic foresight that leadership requires. Working harder isn’t the answer. Neither is download…

Apple’s iPhone sales soared to a new quarterly record during the holiday season, despite artificial intelligence blunders that prompted the technology trendsetter to get a helping hand from Google. The October-December results announced Thursday reflect the allegiance of Apple’s fans, who eagerly snapped up the latest iPhone 17 models even though the company still hasn’t delivered on its 2024 promise to smarten up the device’s Siri assistance with AI. Apple tried to offset its AI miscues with a new “liquid glass” design for the iPhone 17 and older models installed by way of a free software upgrade released last September. That formula helped produce iPhone sales of $85.…

Imagine that you pull up to a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. You step out of the car and walk into the lobby, where the staff greets you by name and ushers you to an elevator. Upstairs, another staff member brings you coffee just the way you like it, minutes after you arrive. A barber is on hand to give you a fresh shave before an important Zoom call, and afterwards, you drop by a caviar tasting that’s happening in the shared lounge. Amid an interior of travertine, green marble, and glass, a dedicated hospitality team and concierge service wants to make sure clients don’t waste time with the “little frictions” of everyday life. This “sanctuary” might sound like one …

Saks Global, owner of luxury retail chains Saks 5th Avenue and Neiman Marcus, has announced the closure of most of its discount outlet stores, Saks Off 5th and Last Call. The store closures come weeks after Saks Global announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Here’s what you need to know about the store closures, including a full list of the locations being shuttered. What’s happened? Yesterday, Saks Global said it would close a majority of its discount outlet stores. While Sak Global is best known for its high-end luxury department store chains, Saks 5th Avenue and Neiman Marcus, the company owns several other retailers, including Be…