Anyone who has spent time in a workplace knows the “go-to” person. They are the colleague who can figure things out when others cannot, and who steps in when something complicated needs to get done. Early in your career, becoming that person feels like success. In many ways, it is. Being capable accelerates opportunity. Leaders notice you, people trust you, and your reputation grows. But over time, something subtle happens. The more capable you prove yourself to be, the more people rely on you. I call this the capability curse. The capability curse occurs when someone’s proven ability to solve…
Author: Staff Writer
In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting conversion therapy for minors. It defined the controversial term as any practice or treatment attempting “to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” But a talk therapist from the state, Kasey Chiles, said the law inhibited her right to free speech in her practice—and as of a ruling on Tuesday, March 31, the Supreme Court voted overwhelmingly in her favor. The Supreme Court decided 8-1 to strike down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors, setting a precedent that could undermine similar laws in 23 states and the District of Columbia. Writing…
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,…
With a portion of the White House demolished and site preparation underway, President Donald Trump’s planned ballroom extension on the White House grounds has been ordered to halt construction. Ruling on a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon granted a request for a preliminary injunction against the White House ballroom, finding that Trump exceeded his authority in pursuing the project without congressional approval. Leon gave the White House—along with lead defendants the National Park Service and six other parties—14 days to appeal. The Trump administration has already appealed the ruling,…
The latest statements coming out of Washington are the result of a structural imbalance that has existed for decades. President Donald Trump is now openly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, calling the alliance a “paper tiger” and questioning its value after European allies failed to align with US policy beyond their immediate interests. To understand this, you have to start with the numbers because they expose the reality far better than any political statement. NATO’s total defense spending is estimated at roughly $1.5 to $1.6 trillion, yet the United States alone accounts for about 62% of that…
U.S. President Donald Trump said the military could end its Iran offensive in two to three weeks and will shift responsibility for the Strait of Hormuz to countries that rely on it for oil and shipping as the White House announced a prime-time presidential address Wednesday evening on the war.Trump expressed frustration Tuesday with allies who have been unwilling to do more to support the U.S. war effort, telling them to “go get your own oil.” Trump recently has vacillated between insisting there is progress in diplomatic talks with Iran and threatening to widen the war.In an interview with pan-Arab…
Your team is busier than ever. Calendars are packed, inboxes are overflowing, and everyone is racing from one meeting to the next. So why aren’t the breakthroughs happening? Here’s the paradox: We’ve optimized for activity, not creativity. According to Microsoft research, people now spend 60% of their workday on communication tasks alone. That’s meetings, emails, and messages. Another study from Dropbox found that 46% of knowledge workers say they don’t have enough time for creative work, and only 8% of employees regularly propose new ideas. The problem isn’t that your team lacks creativity. It’s that we’ve scheduled every minute for…
Jackie, the world-famous Big Bear bald eagle, has been melting hearts and educating the public about her species since 2015, thanks to a web camera run by the California nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV). A little more than 10 years later, her admirers have the chance to give back. FOBBV and the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust (SBMLT) have teamed up to raise money to purchase the property with the goal of preserving the open space. These 62 acres, located on the north shore of Big Bear Lake, are vital not only for Jackie but also for her…
You’re a solopreneur, so you’re in charge of everything. You set your own hours, choose your clients, and decide how your business runs. Nobody needs to approve your decisions. The worst part of solopreneurship is also that you’re in charge. Every decision, every approval, every process runs through one person: you. And when you stall, so does everything else. The same control that makes solo work so appealing can also become the thing that holds your business back. If your business can’t function without your hands on every single detail, you’ll hold yourself back. At some point, you have to…
Every time you ask ChatGPT to draft an email, or prompt an AI assistant to help you decide which refrigerator to buy—somewhere, a data center hums to life to make it happen. These facilities, which can span the size of a small city, are the unglamorous physical infrastructure behind the AI revolution. They’re cavernous buildings packed with servers, cooled by industrial systems, drawing power at a scale that strains local electrical grids. What almost no one talks about is the human beings building them. To construct a single data center, developers source millions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, lithium,…