Pain Is Not Demand Entrepreneurship doctrine has long encouraged founders to search for severe, expensive or persistent customer pain. Find a sufficiently painful problem, the reasoning goes, and customers will welcome a remedy. But customers tolerate an astonishing amount of inconvenience. They com...

Dolly Parton's Gratitude Quote “I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. I re-read passages from my favorite books. I hold the little treasures that somebody special gave me. These small actions help remind me that there are s...

Re-Employed Workers Are Earning Less Headlines about the job market tend to focus on the unemployment rate and net job gains. When those figures look stable, the narrative often shifts to one of recovery and resilience. However, this broad perspective can obscure a more troubling trend: many profess...

Preparing Students for a World Where Machines Know More As the new school year gets underway, educators are setting up classrooms, students are breaking in new notebooks, and parents are re-establishing the familiar routines of homework and busy schedules. Yet beneath these time-honored rituals lies...

New Ways to Connect While the popular narrative often focuses on widespread loneliness and disconnection, emerging data paints a more optimistic picture. People are increasingly gathering in diverse settings to participate in shared activities and foster a sense of community. The challenge now is to...

Coaching Accelerates People. It Doesn’t Repair Them. Corporations Keep Confusing the Two. Michael went quiet in the middle of a sentence. We were deep into a coaching session, preparing for an upcoming quarterly review, when his demeanor shifted. When he spoke again, it was through tears. There were...

The High Cost of Living in Extremes For many ambitious professionals and high-performing leaders, the daily reality of work is defined by operating at the edge of extremes. A project is either a monumental, historic success or a complete failure. You either commit with relentless, all-consuming inte...

Principal Financial Group’s AI Strategy: A Dual Focus on Technology and Human Skills Principal Financial Group has achieved a significant milestone: more than 90% of its approximately 19,000 employees have completed upskilling in AI fluency. For many organizations, reaching this figure would signal ...

Nine Years Early The term "sandwich generation" once conjured images of Gen Xers in their late forties, juggling the needs of growing children and aging parents. According to new research from Care.com, that picture is badly outdated. The company's survey of 1,000 Americans reveals that the average ...

How Board Experience Helps Advance Your Career Board service offers a range of career advantages that extend far beyond the mission of the organization itself. For professionals looking to build momentum, it provides a unique platform to develop operational know-how, expand professional networks, an...

Technical Professionals Must Master Communication Skills Individuals in these roles were originally hired for their deep technical expertise, yet their long-term success increasingly hinges on their ability to communicate effectively with clients. This presents a significant challenge. As AI takes o...

Introduction: Why These Books Matter Now In a volatile economy where bad news dominates – e.g., retirement is unattainable, AI is dangerous – books that offer real-life success stories and how-to pathways are a helpful counterbalance. The premise is simple: despite the economic gloom, success is pos...