Smartphones have enabled us to attend to work from nearly anywhere. But their productivity power also frequently encroaches on our personal lives—making it too easy to reply to business emails or Slack messages when we should be focused on dinner with the fam. Likewise, when we want to get work done, our smartphones can become distraction machines riddled with social media notifications and DMs.

This is why Gen X, boomers, and older millennials often pine for the days when they had separate work and home phones. But what if your smartphone could be both? What if you could still have a dedicated work phone in the office, and a personal phone at home? If you have an iPhone, it’s possible, thanks to an iOS feature called Focus Mode.

Use Focus Mode to turn your iPhone into a work phone

Focus Mode is an amazing feature built into iOS that lets your iPhone be instantly configured for any number of scenarios, such as Work, Driving, Fitness, or Personal. When you engage a certain Focus for whatever scenario you are doing, your iPhone will automatically be configured to show only certain apps, only allow certain notifications to come through, and even have its own unique look.

I recommended setting up at least two: a Focus for work and a Focus for your personal life. Once you know how to set up one, you can set up the other, so let’s explain how to set up a Work Focus.

To begin, open the Settings app on your iPhone and then tap Focus. You will be taken to the Focus screen. On this screen tap the + button in the upper-right corner, and then on the next screen, tap “Work” and then “Customize Focus.”

You will now be on the Work Focus screen, which is where you configure your iPhone for work use.

Next, choose your people and app notifications

When we are working, it’s ideal if we aren’t receiving funny memes texted to us by our friends or notifications from apps alerting us to the latest sports score. With a Work Focus, you can set your iPhone to receive notifications only from people and apps you want to hear from while the Focus is engaged.

First, tap on “Choose People,” and on the next screen select the people you want to receive Apple Messages notifications from. As you’re setting up your iPhone as a business phone, you should only choose the people whom you want to be able to reach you during business hours: your coworkers and clients, for example, plus your child’s daycare or school.

After you have selected your approved people, tap the Next button. On the following screen, set who you want to receive calls from. Your options are Allowed People Only (the people you just selected), Everybody, Favorites, Contacts only, or an entire Contacts group. Make your selection, and tap the Done button.

Now it’s time to choose which apps can send you notifications. I recommend only allowing apps you use for work to send you notifications—such as Slack, Mail, Calendar, Zoom, etc. So, tap on “Choose Apps,” and on the next screen, choose the ones you want to allow notifications from. When you are finished, tap the Done button.

Then, choose the way your iPhone looks in Work Focus

One of the coolest things about Focus Mode is that you can set your iPhone to look a certain way when the mode is engaged. For example, you can set a custom lock screen that appears when the mode is engaged and also set the home screen to only show specific apps. 

To do this, on the Work focus settings screen, tap “Choose” under the grey icon representing your iPhone’s lock screen. You can now choose a distinct lock screen that shows when the Work Focus is engaged. Customize this lock screen in any way you want, including adding work-related widgets to it. Tap Add when finished customizing the lock screen.

Next, tap “Choose” under the grey icon representing your iPhone’s home screen. On the next page, your iPhone will suggest custom home screens that really help turn your iPhone into a work phone. The home screen will collect all your business apps on them, as well as display business-related widgets, like widgets for your calendar appointments.

But you can also customize your custom business home screen however you like so it best suits your workflow by tapping the “Edit Apps” button. Tap Add then Done when you are done customizing your business home screen.

Your iPhone is now a dedicated work phone—when you want it to be

The final step for turning your iPhone into a business phone is simply to switch on the Work Focus you’ve created. When you engage the Work Focus, you’ll see that your iPhone now behaves like a separate business phone: It’s got its own unique lock screen and home screen with only the widgets and apps you use for work. And you’ll only be alerted to notifications from the people and apps that you choose, which means you won’t get distracted by personal stuff.

There are a few ways to turn on your Work Focus. The manual way is to just swipe into Control Center and tap the Focus control and then tap the Work focus.

But you can also have the Work Focus engage automatically based on criteria like times and locations. For example, while you’re at your workspace, your iPhone can use your geolocation to automatically switch on your Work focus. You can also set up your Work Fous to automatically engage during specific times of the day that you work, say from nine to five. You set this up on the Work focus settings screen by tapping “Add Schedule.”

Any time your Work Focus is not turned on, your iPhone will look and act as normal. And as mentioned, you aren’t limited to just having a Focus for Work. You can create a Personal Focus that engages when you are at home—and use that Focus to silence notifications and hide apps that are work-related, so you can enjoy your free time with your family undisturbed.

With one iPhone you really can have a “work phone” again—but only when you want it.

It’s a trend that has surprised many: Why, despite being squeezed by high prices, have Americans kept spending at retail stores and restaurants at a robust pace?

One key reason is a relatively simple one: Wealthier consumers, boosted by strong gains in income, home equity and stock market wealth, have increasingly driven the spending.

That trend, documented by Federal Reserve research, represents something of a shift from the pre-pandemic period. And it suggests that consumer spending, the primary driver of the U.S. economy, could help sustain healthy growth this year and next.

Lower-income consumers, by contrast, have been disproportionately squeezed by higher-priced rent, groceries and other necessities, leaving them less able to spend on discretionary items, like electronics, entertainment and restaurant meals, than they were before the pandemic. Though their spending is starting to rebound as inflation-adjusted incomes rise, it could be years before their finances fully recover.

The disparities help explain the gap between gloomy consumer sentiment and widespread evidence of a healthy U.S. economy — a major dynamic in the presidential race that is now in its final weeks. Only a portion of the American population is fueling most of the growth that is evident in government economic data.

The trends also help illustrate how the economy has managed to keep expanding at a solid pace even though the Federal Reserve, until last month, kept its key interest rate at its highest level in more than two decades. Despite the much higher borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards that resulted from the Fed’s rate hikes, inflation-adjusted consumer spending rose 3% in 2022 and 2.5% in 2023. And it increased at a 2.8% annual rate in the April-June quarter, the government said last month.

On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that retail sales in the United States rose 0.4% from August to September, a solid gain that suggested that shoppers are confident enough in the economy to continue spending freely. Restaurant sales jumped 1%, a particularly encouraging sign because it meant that many people felt they could spend on meals outside the home. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta now estimates that the economy grew at a strong 3.4% in the July-September quarter.

Higher-income households have been fortified by huge gains in housing and stock market wealth since the pandemic. Home values have marched steadily up, fueled by high demand and an unusually low supply of houses. And the stock market has been consistently hitting new highs, with the S&P 500 index up a sizzling 22.5% for the year. Roughly 80% of stock market value is owned by the richest 10% of U.S. households.

“It speaks to the ongoing strength of those Americans, which is still carrying overall spending,” said Michael Pearce, deputy chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

Housing and stock values have soared in particular for the wealthiest one-tenth of Americans over the past four years. The value of their home equity has leapt 70% from the first quarter of 2020 through the second quarter of this year, according to Fed data — to $17.6 trillion. Their stock and mutual fund wealth has jumped 86%, to just under $37 trillion. Though inflation has eroded some of those gains, they are still quite substantial.

Such sharp growth in wealth has reduced the need for affluent Americans to save from their paychecks while still ramping up their spending. A report last week by Fed economists found that before the pandemic, retail spending had been rising for all income groups at roughly the same pace. But about three years ago, the trend shifted: Upper- and middle-income consumers started spending at a much faster pace than lower-earners.

By August 2024, inflation-adjusted spending on retail goods was nearly 17% higher than it was in January 2018 for upper-income households, defined as those earning more than $100,000. For middle-income households — earning $60,000 to $100,000 — their spending rose 13.3% during the same period, the Fed study found. And for those earning less than $60,000, spending has risen just 7.9% since 2018. It actually fell from mid-2021 through mid-2023.

“Middle- and high-income households have been fueling the strong demand for retail goods,” Fed economist Sinem Hacioglu Hoke and two colleagues wrote.

Among those who have felt pressure to spend cautiously is Helaine Rapkin, a 69-year-old teacher who was shopping last week at a Kohl’s in Ramsey, New Jersey, looking for discounts on athletic wear and gifts for her nephew, niece and daughter. Rapkin said she’s wrestling with higher costs on a range of items and isn’t feeling the benefits of a dramatically reduced inflation rate.

“I am not feeling good at all,” she said. “I can’t believe how expensive things have gotten…Clothes or food.”

Pearce, in his own research, has found that since the pandemic, lower-income Americans have had to cut their spending on discretionary items. Inflation sharply increased the portion of their income that they had to spend on housing and food, leaving little for other purchases.

As a result, for the lowest-income one-fifth of Americans — those earning less than $28,000 — the share of their spending on discretionary items fell 2.5 percentage points by the second quarter of this year compared with 2019. It also declined for the second-lowest one-fifth of households and for the middle fifth. But for the wealthiest one-fifth, the share of their spending on discretionary purchases actually increased.

“This has clearly been a very large shock to households, particularly those at the lower end,” Pearce said. “What surprised me is how little has been clawed back.”

One sign of the struggles that lower-income consumers have faced is that the proportion of borrowers who are behind on credit cards or auto loans has risen in the past two years to the highest levels in about a decade.

Karen Dynan, an economist at Harvard and a nonresident fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, suggested, though, that such trends aren’t likely to derail the overall economy.

“There are increasing cracks in consumers’ spending,” she said. “But it’s not yet a broader economic story.”

Dynan and Pearce say they’re optimistic that consumers overall — including lower-income ones — will keep spending in the coming months as inflation-adjusted incomes keep rising, restoring more of Americans’ purchasing power.

“We’re probably past the worst, the most intense pressures on spending from both the inflation shock and from rising interest rates,” Pearce said. “Now, I think the outlook is pretty strong.”

—Christopher Rugaber, Associated Press economics writer

AP retail writer Anne D’Innocenzio contributed to this report.

When I finally get ahold of will.i.am, he is walking circles around a hotel complex in Dubai. Snacking on chips and gauc, his energy is frenetic as he tries to capture how he relates to, cultivates, and protects creativity. 

“I love to go out, see random things, and find beauty in the little stuff,” he says. “I love to pattern match. The more random, the better.” 

Will.i.am (born William Adams Jr.) is an artist, tech entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of FYI (which stands for Focus Your Idea), a new AI-powered platform. He has won an Emmy Award and nine Grammy Awards and is a recipient of the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum and an honorary fellowship from the Institute of Technology and Engineering. He’s written more than 130 songs and is a founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, who he performed with at the Super Bowl, as well as countless venues across the world. He launched and runs a nonprofit organization that rolled out a robotics program in 400 Los Angeles public schools and last year introduced FYI AI, an AI-powered productivity tool designed for creativity. At the moment, he’s wrapping up an executive MBA at Harvard University. 

My relationship to creativity is ever present

Will.i.am doesn’t view creativity as a distinct act. “When you are it, it is you,” he says. “You don’t have to relate to it. It is your being. That’s existence with creativity.” He does, he says, have rituals he’s instinctively practiced since he was 13 years old, playing with words and numbers, exploring the deeper meaning of ideas and patterns that emerge in both history and nature. “The whole concept of writer’s block—I don’t know what that means,” he says. “You can’t come up with ideas? Then you’re thinking too much. That true moment of, Oh shit, I’m in the zone, you’re not thinking. With writer’s block, you’re thinking too much. You’re not being, you’re not flowing.” 

Some people see shit, I see fertilizer

It all depends on how you look at it, says will.i.am; it’s all perspective. “That’s my friend’s rap. When my friend Ben Moore wrote this, I was 17 and he was 19. He said, ‘You see books, I see trees. You see honey, I see bees.’ It’s like wow, that picture told me it’s all perspective. It’s all relative and the whole premise is to be a vessel. It’s made me realize you should never be too critical on your outlet to the point it handicaps you from being that vessel to receive it.” 

I embrace the creative sprint

“I’ll do 30-minute sprints. Whatever I do in 30 minutes, I’m finished. I don’t have time to be the judge. You don’t have time to be like, Wait! Wait! Wait! Get out of that,” he says. “Thirty minutes and time told you it’s done. When time is the judge, then who are you, bro? Who are you but the vessel?! Whatever it is, it’s complete. Then, you show it to somebody.”

In business, you listen to the problem

“You have to ignore what you want to do,” he explains. “You have to ignore your ego, and you have to apply your gifts to identifying the problem. Listen to people—put the voices in your head out of the way; calm those things down.” Solving the problem is critical thinking, says will.i.am. “Push yourself to come up with three plausible methods or solutions in 30 minutes. You’ll land on one. You use that same type of hyper-crunch time exercise. It has to be plausible. It can’t be random whateverness.” 

Music taught me the value of pattern matching, timing, and rhyming

Will.i.am says that his mind has been conditioned to do these hyper-creative exercises. He has to make sense of his surroundings, be clever, use metaphors, and similes. “I have to make it rhyme,” he says, “and I have to do it in time. It’s like, what’s up with a poet’s brain? They have a unique way of pattern matching and pulling shit out of the sky. That type of brain is the kind you want in the room for a brainstorm. That’s the school I come from. Unfortunately for me, if you said I need you to make something and I need it delivered next August, I’m going to glitch. I work amazingly under pressure. Five minutes, go! We have 30 days? There’s no gravity. You ain’t flying when there’s no gravity. I fly with gravity.” 

I am an “and then”-er

If will.i.am is a waterfall of ideation (his words), he considers that both a gift and a curse. He says that he has to calm his mind down from splintering off from “and then. . . . ” He adds, “One ‘and then’ is cool, but if your mind is continuing on with the ‘and thens,’ you’ll distract yourself. I’m still learning which is the best ‘and then’ to execute. Being in that flow of being the performer, the audience, and the critic all at the same time has given me the ability to know in real time which one to pay attention to.” 

I freestyle to myself, that keeps me sharp

“It’s something I’ve done since I was 13 years old. I make stuff up based on what I see, and I make it rhyme. Some months I’m like, ‘Wow that’s cool.’ Some months I’ve got too many crutches. Lately, my crutch is the word ‘sometimes,'” he says. “Why am I saying it so many times? Let me see if I can do it again without that word. That’s being present, but at the same time having a bird’s-eye view while you’re processing and being critical of your process. That type of exercise is what I do daily. I do it out loud when I’m in my car.” 

I romance concepts and dive deep into them

In his down time, he look at words and concepts, he says. Another one he likes is numbers. “I dive deep into them. ‘One’ is super egotistical. ‘Zero’ is like, hey no one values me. ‘Two’ is just like I want to be creative and collaborate—it’s bio . . . it has a companion. ‘Three’ is trinity. Yo, it’s family. ‘Four’ is like, I don’t know what comes after me, but I can’t even believe we got out of one’s ego.” To will.i.am, the number five says, “Let me run shit here; it’s government, it’s five-star, it’s order. ‘Six’ is about balance: feminine and masculine.

“This is how I exist in my mind every day,” he adds, “when there’s nothing around me. It keeps my creativity active. My mind is never asleep. There is never a moment I’m not processing or imagining or dreaming.” 

When it comes to most home screens—on your phone, your computer, you name it—you’ve got endless-seeming options for customizing and taking control.

The one canvas you can’t easily paint, curiously enough, is your browser’s New Tab page. And from one device to the next, it might just be the surface some of us stare at most often.

Sure, New Tab pages are much more customizable than they once were. But wouldn’t it be nice to see the weather right there, every time you open up a new window? Perhaps you’d like some inspirational quotes? Or maybe you’re just eager for more interesting and varied backgrounds?

That’s precisely where this latest Cool Tool comes into play.

Unearth all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. A useful new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday!

Your blissful new New-Tab experience

The tool I want to introduce you to today is a handy little add-on called ​Tabliss​.

➜ Tabliss is an especially beautiful New Tab experience that works in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and basically any other browser.

⌚ You can get started with it in about five seconds.

On a computer that’s running Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or any Chrome-based browser:

• Open the Tabliss website.
• Click the button to add Tabliss as an extension to your browser of choice.
• After installing the extension, just open a new tab. You’ll see the Tabliss home screen whenever you do.
• Use the gear-shaped settings button at the top-left corner of the screen to open the Tabliss customization pane and tweak it in any way you like.

On any other desktop browser—or a browser on a phone or tablet, where extensions can’t be installed—you can simply use Tabliss’s web version and then set that as your browser’s home page.

For example, in Chrome on Android, you’d:

• Tap the three-dot menu button in Chrome’s upper-right corner and select “Settings.”
• Tap “Homepage,” within the Advanced section.
• Turn the switch to “On” and type or paste in web.tabliss.io.

Now, you’ll see a home button in the Chrome app’s toolbar, and you can tap it to open the Tabliss page.

Whichever way you’re using it, you can set up your new Tabliss home page to look and work any way you want. The service has a variety of widgets you can add, including a location-driven weather widget and a convenient little to-do list.

Plus, you can customize the background and even set it to rotate through a variety of images from the Unsplash photography site. It’s all possible in a few clicks, and it’ll completely change the vibe of your web browser.

And here’s a bonus: Tabliss also lets you export and import your custom settings. So, once you’ve gotten things set up the way you want, you can tap that gear icon in the tool’s upper-left corner and use the “Export” option at the bottom of the pane to export your settings as a file.

You can then import that file into Tabliss on any device to get your custom setup in place in an instant—even bringing your computer’s Tabliss setup to your phone, or vice-versa.

• Tabliss works either as an installable browser extension or via its web version, without any downloads whatsoever.
• It’s 100% free with no ads—and it’s open source, too. But the volunteers behind it do accept donations.
• Tabliss’s ​simple privacy policy​ promises it won’t collect or share any manner of data outside of anonymous crash reports.

Get even more experience-enhancing goodies with my free Cool Tools newsletter—a single new off-the-beaten-path gem in your inbox every Wednesday!

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.

Over the past 40 years, U.S. home prices as tracked by the Freddie Mac House Price Index, have soared a staggering 494%.

The 10 states with the biggest home price gains between March 1984 and March 2024 were Washington (828%), Oregon (699%), Rhode Island (668%), Massachusetts (664%), California (664%), Hawaii (639%), Utah (610%), Montana (608%), Idaho (607%), Maine (605%).

During that 40-year span, overall inflation rose 203%, while median U.S. household incomes rose 233%.

Despite the significant disparity between national home price growth and inflation/median incomes, housing affordability is a different story. Traditional housing affordability measurements—taking into account mortgage rates, median incomes, and national home prices—show that in 2024, the situation is only marginally worse than it was for national housing affordability in 1984. This is especially true for buyers who are financing their housing market purchases (although, those who could afford to pay all-cash in 1984 had a considerable advantage over all-cash buyers in 2024).

The reason that 1984 and 2024 housing affordability are closer than incomes and prices alone suggest? Mortgage rates. In 1984, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was between 13.0% to 15.0%, whereas in 2024, it hovers around 7.0%. Of course, if you consider other factors like property taxes, home insurance, and down payment size, that could make 2024 housing affordability a little worse than traditional affordability metrics suggest.

It's important to note that state-level home prices did not rise upward in a perfectly straight line over the past four decades; there were bumps along the way. And just because national home prices have soared by 494% over the past 40 years doesn’t mean the next 40 years will look the same.

When my father passed away in 2013, my sister and I learned that we were the joint beneficiaries of his life insurance policy. We knew that Dad intended this money as a strings-free gift. His final arrangements were already paid for, and my sister and I were both thirtysomething adults who did not rely on his income. And yet, I have never felt more financial stress in my life than when dealing with our inheritance, which consisted of the proceeds of our dad’s life insurance.

Despite knowing Dad would want me to go on a vacation or purchase a car with his gift, the idea of enjoying this money felt like a betrayal. Allowing the money to make me happy would signify that I was glad Dad had died.

Which is how I was introduced to the sometimes crazy-making experience of receiving an inheritance. Considering the $72 trillion in assets expected to pass from baby boomers to their children and grandchildren in the next 20 years, millions of Americans need to better understand how to handle inherited money. 

Here’s what you need to know.

Grief is irrational (and sometimes ugly)

Even the most tight-knit family can devolve into nasty fighting when someone dies. If there is also money (or heirlooms) at stake, the conflict can potentially fracture relationships long term.

It’s helpful to think of grief as a desiccant—it wrings all the water out of mourners, leaving them the most concentrated version of themselves. So your argumentative uncle will contest everything anyone says, your status-obsessed sister-in-law will be pushing for the luxe casket despite the deceased’s wishes, and your ne’er-do-well cousin will get high in front of his pearl-clutching grandmother.

In other words, expect to see your family’s least attractive traits magnified by their grief.

Keeping this fact in mind can help you navigate the difficult process of inheritance. You can prepare yourself for the most concentrated version of your family and take their reactions less personally. If at least one heir maintains their calm, they can stay above the fray and work to ensure the inheritance is distributed according to the estate plan.

Time is on your side

When you receive money as a result of someone’s death, you’re bound to have complex feelings about the cash. In my case, I felt duty bound to spend the money on things my financial-planner father would approve of—like giving to charity, putting money into my kids’ 529 accounts, and contributing to my retirement accounts. It was very important to me that I not have any fun with the money.

This is a common response to inherited wealth, but it is not the only one. Other heirs may feel like they have to lavishly spend the money on themselves because it’s what their loved one would have wanted. And still others may feel internal pressure to find the perfect way to use the money.

What all these reactions have in common is that heirs feel like they need to act quickly. Receiving any windfall can feel like a kind of emergency because you could make the “wrong” financial decision and ruin your good fortune. Add in the element of grief, and that sense of urgency is turned up by your emotions.

This is why anyone who has received an inheritance should find a safe place to park it for a few months before making any big decisions. Allowing the worst of your grief to dissipate before you start making major purchases, gifts, or investments will allow you to make choices that fit your financial needs and goals, rather than soothe your emotional response.

Experts can help

Inheriting money can have a number of potential implications on your financial situation, from your tax burden to your investment choices to your housing. These kinds of issues can be too much for the average person to handle under normal circumstances, let alone while missing a loved one.

This is why heirs should talk to financial advisors before making big decisions about their inheritance. Even if you have never worked with an accountant or a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) before, now is the time to find an expert who can help you navigate the financial complexities.

An advisor can help you make the right moves to avoid unnecessary taxes or government penalties, determine the best investments for your goals, and figure out any hidden costs of major purchases.

To find an advisor you can trust, treat the process like a job interview—where you’re the prospective employer. Ask about the advisor’s background, certifications, areas of expertise, and compensation, and don’t accept condescension, unexplained jargon, or reassurances with no substance.

Making the most of your inheritance

Inheriting money is an emotional and unsettling experience, even if the money itself is a blessing and a gift. Recognizing how grief may affect other heirs in your family, taking your time before making decisions about your windfall, and consulting trusted experts to help navigate the potential implications of your inheritance, can all help you make the best decisions with the money.

Not to mention, following these steps can also save you a great deal of heartache and anxiety. Ask me how I know.

I don’t spend a lot of time on TikTok. I’m afraid of it, actually—afraid of being sucked into that oddly compelling vortex, further diminishing my old-school research brain. Advancing years are already doing no favors to my attention span. Luckily, I have Gen Z nieces who back-channel links to interesting things for us to do together.  Like make a dopamine menu.

The original idea comes from Jessica McCabe, creator of the YouTube channel, How to ADHD. The concept is simple: You make a list of dopamine-stimulating activities designed to promote maintainable well-being instead of quick hits. You group them like restaurant offerings: appetizers (easily accomplished in a short burst of time), entrées (requiring more planning and time), sides (done in tandem with a larger task, like listening to a favorite author on audiotape while cleaning), desserts (indulgences better undertaken in moderation), and specials (longer events, done on occasion).

What started out as a bit of a lark—and opportunity to review menus with my nieces, swapping dopamine-enhancing activity ideas—has become my most effective productivity system. And I’ve tried them all: The Pomodoro Technique and time blocking; atomic habits and the miracle morning. I even tried eating the frog, which lasted one day.

The dopamine menu approach

But this menu approach is working. Maybe it’s because I am a former food writer, but an organizational structure based on menu-ordering principles makes my goals, ideas, and activities easier to incorporate into my life.

One of my persistent personal goals (and failures) was 20 minutes of daily stretching. Each time I transferred it from one to-do list to another as uncompleted, I felt disappointed in myself. But as an “appetizer” selection, a series of five-minute stretches done as regular work breaks, I finally hit the target. And because that physical and mental accomplishment felt so good, I joined a Tai Chi practice in a nearby park, now a dopamine-boosting activity in my entrée category.

I’ve also adapted this menu structure so I can apply it to my work life. As a researcher for C-suite executives, I do a ton of reading from a wide range of resources. At any given moment, I have at least 50 bookmarked links to review and sort and send to the right client. Managing all this information used to feel overwhelming, but now I take an appetizer approach: I reread just a few articles at a time and send them off to the most relevant recipients. (When I know a client is boarding a long flight, I might even send a small reading pod, something they would never have time for in their office.) This one strategic shift led to better communication with my regulars, which added to my value and has already resulted in one retainer renewal.

Five-star results

Is my “menu” producing neuro-chemically proven dopamine? Don’t know; don’t care. What I do know is that when I feel better, I work better, and when I work better, I feel better.

The dopamine menu technique opened channels of organizational energy I’ve not experienced with other standardized productivity systems, despite their popularity and promises. It’s an invitation to improve, to order up a blended day of personal and work possibilities that suits my appetite. What may appear as small differences has produced outsize results, lighting up my brain, even on darker days.

In recent years, we’ve heard a lot about “neurodivergence” on social media, including genetic disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). The growing awareness of differences in learning abilities means that more people can understand, manage, and seek treatment for a variety of conditions. But, as an increasing number of people view and relate to content online, it appears to have led to a lot of self-diagnosis.

That’s particularly true for adults who are now self-diagnosing with ADHD after viewing content that resonates with them online. According to a new national survey by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine, around 25% of adults suspect they have ADHD; 13% of those adults are convinced enough that they have the disorder that they end up speaking to a doctor about their concerns.

The actual number who have the disorder are far lower, at around 4.4% for adults between 18 and 44, according to Ohio State psychologist Justin Barterian, who spoke about the uptick in self-diagnosis in a press release about the new research. Barterian explained that self-diagnosing can often lead to more complications. “Anxiety, depression, and ADHD—all these things can look a lot alike, but the wrong treatment can make things worse instead of helping that person feel better and improving their functioning,” Barterian said.

Still, the psychologist says there’s an upside to increased awareness, specifically when it comes to adults who were never diagnosed as children but are still coping with ADHD symptoms. “There’s definitely more awareness of how it can continue to affect folks into adulthood, and a lot of people who are realizing, once their kids have been diagnosed, that they fit these symptoms as well, given that it’s a genetic disorder,” Barterian said. 

While increased awareness of ADHD and other brain disorders may mean that those with the condition have more self-compassion or those who don’t will have more empathy for those with it, overmedicating is a big concern. Many telehealth sites prescribe stimulants and other drugs after simple online questionnaires, leading to concerns that Adderall and other drugs are far too easy to access for those who don’t have the disorder. Nathalie Savell, a Maryland-based therapist, tells Fast Company that overmedication is troublesome because ADHD medications can be highly addictive. “It’s not great for the nervous system,” she explains.

Savell also presses that there are plenty of modern issues that can feed into distractibility, mirroring ADHD, and if people self-diagnose, they may avoid the real problems. “If you’re wanting to better handle feelings of [being] overwhelmed, or being scattered, there’s a good chance you might need to try spending less time on your phone, making sure there’s space in your schedule, that you’re getting enough sleep, and enough time outside,” she says. Savell adds that, in an overstimulating world, it has become essential to prioritize “a lifestyle that supports your mental wellness in the midst of a culture that is encouraging you not to.”

Barterian says that awareness of ADHD is a good thing but suggests that social media users not jump to conclusions because of a TikTok or Instagram post that feels familiar. “If you’re watching videos on social media and it makes you think that you may meet criteria for the disorder, I would encourage you to seek an evaluation from a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a physician to get it checked out,” Barterian said.

Dana Maor is a senior partner at McKinsey & Company. She is the global co-head and Europe leader for the McKinsey People & Organizational Performance Practice.

Hans-Werner Kaas is the co-dean of McKinsey & Company’s CEO leadership program, the Bower Forum. He is a senior partner emeritus at McKinsey and works with and counsels CEOs and leaders across multiple industry sectors globally.

Kurt Strovink leads McKinsey & Company’s CEO special initiative globally. He is a senior partner with expertise in CEO transitions and the role of the CEO as a catalyst.

Ramesh Srinivasan is a senior partner at McKinsey & Company and co-dean of McKinsey’s Bower Forum.

Below, the coauthors share five key insights from their new book, The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out. Listen to the audio version—read by Maor and Srinivasan—in the Next Big Idea app.

1. Leaders need to think about who they are as much as what they want to do

Most successful leaders have cracked the code on what to do. Few, however, invest time in learning who they are as leaders. This stands in their way of thriving (rather than survival), reaching their full potential, and leading their organizations to sustained success.

In this age of constant change, challenge, and uncertainty, knowing what to do is insufficient. Effective leadership requires a balance of humility, vulnerability, and selflessness. Without these traits, leaders may be less effective at inspiring their teams and fostering a healthy organizational culture.

Leaders should engage in continuous self-reflection to understand their values, strengths, and weaknesses. Self-reflection is neither a privilege nor an indulgence; it serves the organization. It’s important to find a mechanism for contemplating your aspirations and opportunities for growth. It can be a mindfulness practice like meditation or creating an advisory group of trusted individuals.

We recommend leaders create a personal commitment plan to inspire their team and demonstrate commitment. Leaders who take an inside-out approach are better equipped to lead their teams.

2. The best leaders are vulnerable

Courage and showing vulnerability—sharing hopes, fears, and concerns—is part of being an authentic leader. It builds trust and encourages a culture of openness and continuous learning. An organization built on trust within is also more likely to build trust with customers and stakeholders.

Organizational speed and resilience are not possible if leaders are not empowered by trust to take initiative. When leaders demonstrate humility and authenticity, team members feel safe taking risks and innovating. Accepting failure turns mistakes into valuable learning opportunities, promoting resilience and adaptability. The most successful leaders do not pretend to have all the answers. They, too, are constantly learning and growing.

In our book, Reeta Roy of Mastercard Foundation shares a difficult moment that transformed the Foundation’s relationship with a partner organization. When Reeta decided to focus the organization’s mission solely on Sub-Saharan Africa, she spent months talking to community members in four countries to learn about barriers people faced. In a meeting with a partner organization, the organization’s leader interrupted the conversation to address a communication issue that was creating a damaging dynamic. Reeta realized their critical foundation of trust was at risk, so she apologized without hesitation and committed to making a change. This simple act set a new standard for the Foundation’s interactions and led to expanded collaboration with African organizations to address youth unemployment.

3. Being a great leader is a masterful dance of navigating polarities and balancing competing commitments

Leadership requires balancing vulnerability and authenticity with confidence and making tough decisions. It takes the discipline and creativity of a dancer. Leaders must balance certainty with openness, financial performance with stakeholder needs, short-term objectives with long-term aspirations, and control with curiosity and empowerment. They must be humble yet decisive, vulnerable yet strong, cautious yet bold, and forgiving yet demanding.

One foundational tension is around how leaders approach the need to be professional and the need to be authentic. The way out is not to resolve the tension but to keep it in balance, showing up as both professional (adapting to outside-in norms and expectations) and authentic (attuned to inside-out values and vulnerabilities).

Great human-centric leaders cultivate dual awareness, paying equal attention to their inner experience and their outer context and constantly choosing to adapt to the moment.

4. The digital age requires more adaptive leadership

Leaders must be committed to lifelong learning as technology evolves. A culture of flexibility and innovation is essential to staying competitive in a digital landscape.

In a world increasingly driven by data and algorithms, connecting with people on a human level will be essential to navigate the emotional and ethical complexities machines can’t manage. The human touch in leadership can ensure that technology enhances, not diminishes, the workplace experience.

Human-centric focus presents the toughest questions: How do I manage my time, and what gives me energy? How do I inspire my team? How do I shift the culture of the organization?

5. Control is an illusion

Successful leadership involves giving up control and trusting others. Prioritize tasks that only leaders can do and delegate the rest, fostering a culture of autonomy. Today’s best leaders understand they must listen and connect the dots across the organization. They create an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute, which is crucial in today’s dynamic and interconnected world.

The inclination of business leaders is to bring their expertise and brains to the world. They must also think about how they can create an environment that allows a whole organization to deliver successfully against their hopes and aspirations. The delicate balance between control and autonomy is exemplified in CEO Wendy Kopp’s journey to scale Teach for America globally to create Teach for All. The night before announcing the expansion, she was filled with doubt about upholding quality in a newly decentralized, sprawling organization. Wendy had to learn to relinquish control and trust local leaders to adapt the program to their unique contexts while adhering to core principles.

Wendy’s story is a powerful reminder that true leadership lies in empowering others, fostering a shared purpose, and embracing the collective strength of diverse leaders. While control may be an illusion, the impact of collective leadership is real and transformative.

This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.

Boy, is my wife mad at Amazon for killing off the wonderful Oasis line of premium Kindle e-book readers. I, too, am upset—she’s due for an upgrade and the holidays are right around the corner.

She likes the Oasis’s buttons—the physical, tangible, clicky-clacky, tried and true buttons for turning pages. Amazon says they’re going all in on “touch-forward” devices—i.e. no more buttons.

Fortunately in today’s touchscreen-dominated world, a few brave e-reader manufacturers continue to champion the tactile experience of physical page-turn buttons.

Here are some of the unsung heroes keeping the tradition alive.

Barnes & Noble

Despite facing stiff competition in the e-reader market, Barnes & Noble has consistently included physical buttons in its Nook line of devices.

The latest offerings from the GlowLight series of e-readers start at $150 and incorporate modern features like adjustable color temperature and USB-C charging. And buttons, of course. 

Being a bookseller, Barnes & Noble offers a huge variety of downloadable content from its store. If you’re worried about missing out on the ease of downloading books to your Kindle, you’ll feel right at home here.

Kobo

Rakuten’s Kobo has emerged as a major player in the e-reader market by thoughtfully balancing innovation with traditional features.

While not all its models include physical buttons, its premium devices like the $220 Libra Colour and the $270 Sage demonstrate a commitment to tactile controls.

These devices also support bonus features like stylus input and note-taking.

Onyx Boox

ONYX BOOX has carved out a unique niche by creating versatile E Ink devices that bridge the gap between e-readers and tablets.

The 7-inch Boox Page costs $220 and puts e-reading features front and center. Under the hood, though, it’s got a powerful chipset and runs Android, which makes it ideal for tasks beyond book reading such as light web browsing and third-party app usage.

Every Christmas growing up in Minnesota, Jimmy Darts’ parents gave him $200 in cash: $100 for himself and $100 for a stranger. Now, with over 12 million followers on TikTok and several million more on other platforms, philanthropy is his full-time job.

Darts, whose real surname is Kellogg, is one of the biggest creators of “kindness content,” a subset of social media videos devoted to helping strangers in need, often with cash amassed through GoFundMe and other crowdfunding methods. A growing number of creators like Kellogg give away thousands of dollars – sometimes even more – on camera as they also encourage their large followings to donate.

“The internet is a pretty crazy, pretty nasty place, but there’s still good things happening on there,” Kellogg told The Associated Press.

Not everyone likes these videos, though, with some viewers deeming them, at their best, performative, and at their worst, exploitative.

Critics argue that recording a stranger, often unknowingly, and sharing a video of them online to gain social media clout is problematic. Beyond clout, content creators can make money off the views they get on individual videos. When views reach the millions, as they often do for Kellogg and his peers, they make enough to work full-time as content creators.

Comedian Brad Podray, a content creator formerly known online as “Scumbag Dad,” creates parodies designed to highlight the faults he finds with this content — and its proponents — as one of the most vocal critics of “kindness content.”

“A lot of young people have a very utilitarian mindset. They think of things only in measurable value: ‘It doesn’t matter what he did, he helped a million people’,” Podray said.

Recording practices prompt questions of ethics

From the recording devices and methods down to the selection of subjects, “kindness content” — like everything on social media — exists on a spectrum.

Some creators approach strangers and ask them for advice or for a favor, and if they bite, they receive a prize. Others choose to reward strangers they see doing a good deed. Kellogg performs a “kindness challenge,” asking a stranger for something and returning it in kind.

Many of these strangers are unaware they’re being filmed. Some creators employ hidden cameras and aim to record subjects in a discreet manner. Kellogg said he wants to be as “secret about it as possible,” but asks for consent to share the video after the interaction. Kellogg said most agree because they look “like a superhero” after his challenge.

Another charitable content creator, Josh Liljenquist, said he uses a GoPro camera and tries to make recording “extremely noticeable,” adding, “Consent’s the biggest thing.”

Regardless of the recording method, some see the process as predatory.

“These guys always find someone with cancer or always find someone who can’t pay their bills because they’re stalking through underserved and poor areas and they’re just sort of waiting,” Podray said. “Looking through the parking lot like, ‘He looks pathetic enough’.”

Karen Hoekstra, the marketing and communications manager for the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, studies TikTok-based influencer philanthropy and says the videos, at times, take advantage of their subjects.

“The model of the man on the street walking up and approaching a stranger and handing them money is — we’ve all heard this phrase, terrible as it is — it just strikes me as poverty porn,” Hoekstra said. “It’s exploitation.”

Calls of exploitation often come when creators feature the same people across multiple videos, especially when they appear to be homeless or have a drug addiction. Liljenquist features some people frequently and maintains that his recurring subjects are like his “best friends.”

One user commented on an Oct. 5 video that recent content feels like Liljenquist is “playing case worker for views,” as he posted several videos of a woman who followers suspect is struggling with a drug addiction. He records himself bringing her food, giving her a ride in his Tesla, and asking her questions that often get one-word responses.

Liljenquist said criticism doesn’t bother him because he knows his intentions are good.

“I love these people,” he said. “They love me.”

Lack of checks and balances

Some criticize the showmanship of “kindness content,” but visibility is crucial to the model that relies heavily on crowdfunding. Kellogg is known to start GoFundMe fundraisers on behalf of his video subjects, usually bringing in tens of thousands of dollars in viewer donations.

Kellogg, Liljenquist and scores of other creators also use their personal accounts on payment apps like Venmo, CashApp or PayPal to accept donations.

Tory Martin, also of the Johnson Center as its director of communications and strategic partnerships, said transparency about donations is “not an option if it’s just going to an individual.”

Although these creators aren’t held to standards and regulations like nonprofits, Liljenquist said he feels donor dollars go much further in his hands than in the hands of traditional organizations, which he said are “designed for failure.”

“Nonprofits — not all of them, there are some good ones — but I would just suggest you do your homework on the nonprofits that you are giving money to because there’s a good amount of them who take advantage of the system,” he said.

Some creators have set up nonprofit organizations or foundations to support their work, but that is not a widespread practice.

Podray said he is “100% sure” some creators “take a rake or that there’s some sort of nonsense going on.” He also maintains that select creators hand out fake money to cash in on the trend.

Kellogg said seeing fraudulent or exploitative videos is tough for him, worrying, “My gosh, every Facebook mom just fell for this and thinks it’s real.”

New wave of philanthropy

While controversy swirls around these videos in some online circles, they are part of a hugely popular social media trend with millions of supporters and thousands who are compelled to donate after watching.

Although Hoekstra has concerns about some creators’ methods, she said the introduction to charitable giving these videos make for young people is valuable.

“Anything that can present philanthropy to them in a new way and make it accessible and make it exciting I think is a good thing,” she said. “Obviously, there’s going to be a learning curve, but I think it’s really exciting to see philanthropy be so accessible and understandable and embraced in these new spaces and in new ways.”

Some skeptics have become supporters. Kyle Benavidez said he used to see “kindness content” on social media and think it was fake. But after his mother was featured in one of Kellogg’s recent videos and a GoFundMe Kellogg created for her raised over $95,000 to support their family while her husband is in the hospital with cancer, he said Kellogg’s online persona is true to his real-life character.

“There’s a chapel in the hospital and I always go there every morning just to pray. ‘Hopefully something happens.’ And then Jimmy came to our lives,” Benavidez, 20, said. “It’s like God sent him.”

Kellogg shows no signs of slowing down his philanthropic work any time soon and rolls out videos across his social platforms almost every day. Still, he says doing good deeds on camera only matters if he and his peers keep it up when the cameras aren’t rolling.

“You can fool people all day and you can make money and do this and that, but God sees your heart,” he said.

—Kaitlyn Huamani, Associated Press

Corners of financial markets that could feel the impact of a Donald Trump victory are stirring again, as the U.S. presidential race tightens with less than three weeks until Election Day.

Assets ranging from small-cap stocks to bitcoin have climbed in recent weeks while the Mexican peso and Treasuries have slipped, as polls show a tight race between Republican candidate Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

The moves echo the so-called Trump trades from earlier this year when he pulled ahead of President Joe Biden, only to fade after Biden withdrew.

Harris led Trump by a marginal 45% to 42% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, a tighter race than the same poll showed several weeks earlier.

Trump has taken the lead in online prediction markets such as PredictIt and Polymarket. Polymarket last favored him 61% to 39% over Harris.

Trump’s gains on Polymarket might stem from a group of four Polymarket accounts that have collectively spent about $30 million worth of cryptocurrency on bets that he will win, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Polymarket did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Investors caution, however, that linking the investment moves to Trump this time is more difficult, as many can also be tied to rising economic optimism following a blowout U.S. jobs report this month and a 50-basis-point interest-rate cut from the Federal Reserve last month.

“Some of this certainly could be being driven by Trump’s improved position in the predictive markets,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.

Due to strong economic data, however, “it’s really hard to separate cause from effect, much less separate different causes,” he said.

Among the biggest gainers are shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the former president’s media company, which have broadly tracked Trump’s fortunes in polls and online prediction markets since its listing this year.

Shares are up more than 140% since Sept. 23.

“It’s the trade that is most levered to Trump’s election prospects,” Sosnick said.

Other beneficiaries include private prison operators Geo Group and CoreCivic, whose shares have risen about 18% and 10%, respectively, this month. Trump has promised to crack down on illegal immigration, which could boost demand for detention centers.

The small cap-focused Russell 2000 is up 4% since Oct. 10 and trades near its highest level since late 2021. Expectations that Trump will keep taxes low and reduce regulation have boosted shares of smaller companies, though analysts believe they are also benefiting from greater confidence in the economy.

In foreign-exchange markets, Trump trades are visible in the dollar’s rebound against a range of currencies, particularly the Mexican peso, strategists said.

The peso, seen as vulnerable to new tariffs Trump plans to impose, is down 4% from its September high. MSCI’s gauge for Latin American currencies has slipped over 3% during that period.

“Implied volatility in the dollar-peso pair has been ratcheting up in line with Trump’s gains in betting markets,” said Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at payments company Corpay in Toronto.

Trump said on Sunday he would slap tariffs as high as 200% on vehicles imported from Mexico.

The former president’s economic policies are seen as growth-friendly and a catalyst for inflation, two factors that could translate to higher Treasury yields, which move inversely to bond prices, and a stronger dollar.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against six major currencies, has risen more than 3% since late September, as investors price in a shallower trajectory for interest-rate cuts. Some of its gains, however, are likely related to greater confidence of a Trump win, wrote Thierry Wizman, global FX & rates strategist at Macquarie.

Improved betting-market odds for Trump, who has positioned himself as pro-cryptocurrency, appear to be lifting bitcoin. The world’s largest cryptocurrency is up 12% since Oct. 10, a rally that Sean Farrell, head of digital asset strategy at Fundstrat Global Advisors, attributed to rising confidence in a Trump victory.

“If Trump secures a second term, the regulatory-risk-driven discount applied to crypto would likely shrink to near-zero, and investors would need to price in the possibility, however small, of the government adopting a strategic bitcoin reserve,” he said.

In government bond markets, some investors believe Trump’s improved standing has spurred a rise in the 10-year term premium – a measure of the compensation investors demand to hold long-term government debt securities – on concerns that the former president’s proposals for lower taxes could increase the budget deficit.

A New York Fed gauge measuring term premium turned positive last week for the first time since July. The move has come amid a broader rise in Treasury yields.

Part of the reason for those moves are expectations of a Trump win, said Matt Eagan, portfolio manager and head of the full discretion team at Loomis, Sayles & Company.

Still, not everyone interprets these market moves as bets on a Trump victory.

“I think the election mostly remains as a toss-up,” said Sonu Varghese, global macro strategist at Carson Group. “The story is really one of stronger economic growth and a supportive Fed.”

—Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Suzanne McGee, Reuters

Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf, Michelle Conlin and Davide Barbuscia.

Josh Pehlke remembers having to beg and plead at bars and restaurants to get them to show WNBA games just a few years ago. Too often, the answer was a flat-out no.

These days, he doesn’t have to worry as much.

As the general manager at Signature Bar & Restaurant in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood, about a 3-point shot from the Chicago Sky’s home at Wintrust Arena, he has some say. But even when he’s not at work, he has noticed a difference.

“I’ve been to Cubs games this season and gone into sports bars in Wrigleyville and found the WNBA on TV, whereas two or three years ago, that wasn’t happening,” Pehlke said.

The WNBA drew sellout crowds and unprecedented ratings in a transformational season that’s winding down with a finals matchup between the New York Liberty, seeking their first title, and the Minnesota Lynx going for their record fifth. The best-of-five series opened Thursday with Minnesota rallying to beat New York in overtime.

Whether it was Indiana’s Caitlin Clark and Chicago’s Angel Reese taking their captivating rivalry from college to the pros, Simone Biles capturing more gold at the Olympics or 92,003 fans packing Nebraska’s football stadium for a volleyball game, women’s sports in general are drawing more eyeballs.

Sports bars and restaurants are taking note, adjusting their marketing and menus in order to attract a wider range of customers. At least some say they’re seeing an increased demand for women’s sports on their TVs, though the evidence is more anecdotal than statistical. A handful catering specifically to women’s sports have opened in recent years, such as The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon.

Either way, fans have options if they want to grab a bite and a drink and watch a game away from home.

“You’ll see small groups of women coming out to watch the actual sports,” Bar Louie CEO Brian Wright said. “And you see a lot of men requesting women’s sports now. So it’s kind of an entire paradigm shift of how women’s sports are being viewed. You very seldom saw a group of men coming in saying, ‘Can you put on that WNBA game?’ Now, that’s really becoming commonplace.”

Bar Louie has restaurants in 21 states from coast to coast and as many as 20 TVs per location. As for how many are tuned to each specific sport, Wright said there’s no real science in determining that. But he is sure of a few things.

The chain is attracting a greater percentage of female customers. And when Clark or Reese were playing, that was good for business. Their NCAA Tournament games the past two years, for example, created about a 10% bump in business.

At Twin Peaks, where most locations have 16 satellites and 75 TVs, the clientele skews about 80% male, CEO Joe Hummel said. But the gender gap is narrowing.

“Five years ago we might not have advertised or pushed women’s March Madness,” Hummel said.

The company evaluates the schedule every day to determine how many TVs will be tuned to each game. The restaurants can adjust based on news and customer demand, which is key. Hummel said Twin Peaks does not track how many TVs are tuned to specific events or customers requesting to sit where they can see a particular game.

“It’d be very difficult,” he said. “Our operators have a lot of communication back and forth with the guest and if we inundated our operators — you have to track this, this and this all the time — they would end up worrying about the stats and not even taking care of the guests.”

Nicole Bond, associate director of marketing strategy at Mintel Comperemedia, said research shows 71% of consumers believe women’s sports will continue to grow in popularity. She sees it up close in her side job as a bartender at Bernie’s Tap & Grill near Wrigley Field in Chicago.

“Men are leaning into women’s athletics,” said Bond, a former Northwestern softball player. “And I hear the conversations that you hear them having about what’s happening in the W, or what’s happening in the NWSL or whatever it is. It’s become really interesting and like a norm in bar conversations. I think people are wanting to watch those games and groups just like you do when you bring people in for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup.”

Pehlke became a WNBA fan about a decade ago and started following the Sky when they added Chicago-area product Candace Parker prior to the 2021 championship season. He grew up a Los Angeles Lakers fan in northern Wisconsin.

Pehlke, whose friend has season tickets, is a regular at Wintrust Arena for Sky games. He even collects WNBA trading cards.

Signature, which is owned by former Bears defensive lineman Israel Idonije, opened in January. There are 13 TVs on the walls, with 10 tuned to the WNBA on a Friday night near the end of the regular season. Six were showing the Sky’s game at Minnesota.

During the playoffs, Pehlke said, the restaurant saw more requests for TVs to be tuned to the WNBA. He was expecting an uptick in business, too.

“Demand has been outstanding this entire playoffs,” he said. “I was very happy to see that it wasn’t just for the Fever games, but seemingly for all of the games.”

—Andrew Seligman, Associated Press sports writer

Can a map of the stars and planets help you crush your career and unpack life’s big decisions? Can it also help you understand your coworkers and bridge the generational divide between Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and boomers?

If you’re under age 35, the answer is likely a resounding “ofc” to the first part.

A recent survey by Edubirdie found that 80% of millennials and Gen Z (ages 16-34) believe in astrology and that 63% of them believe it’s positively impacted their careers. Of the study’s 2,000 U.S.-based participants, a whopping 72% of them also say they rely on astrology to make important life decisions.

Contrast that with findings from a February 2024 Harris Poll showing only 10% of boomers are full-on astro acolytes (and interestingly, only 13% of Gen Z are total believers), while 50% of millennials are all in.

Add it to the growing pyre of generational divides and disparities that sometimes sow divisiveness and dysfunction in the workplace. We’ve all heard the gripes about “entitled millennials” and “fragile Gen Z-ers with TikTok trauma” as often as the wry “okay boomer” counter-offensive and death rites pronounced upon Gen X’s “hustle culture.” None of that makes our office environments more fulfilling—or less fractured.

There are an unprecedented five generations currently in the workforce together. And six in 10 companies report that they fired a recently hired college graduate in 2024, it’s clear we need some new tools to understand each other and bridge the generational divides.

Given its current popularity, why not consider a time-honored system used by the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and every great Renaissance-era university—as one of the tools in our dashboards?

Full disclosure: I’ve written more than 20 books—most of which center around practical uses of astrology. I have used this “spiritual technology” as one of my guidance systems for 30 years.

Five generations. One common workplace language

Today’s employee is entering a five-generation workforce that could have a 60-year age difference between workers. That’s a major generational divide, especially when workers have few if any, common cultural references and experiences to unite them. 

Unless we stream the same shows or binge the TikTok trends (unlikely, thanks to the technology that’s both algorithmically siloing us and helping us live longer), the rifts are only getting wider.

But here’s some uplifting news: The AARP has found that teams with older and younger workers are more productive than single-generation teams. 

Companies of all sizes struggle with faltering employee retention, low engagement, and poor team cohesion. Maybe we need another system to bridge the generational divide and show us that we do share values and attributes, regardless of our age or other identity differences. 

Does it have to be astrology? No. But since 95% of Americans know their astrological sign, 70% believe in astrology, and two-thirds of millennials are open to astrological career guidance, it could be something to consider. 

I’m not here to debate whether astrology is scientific (it’s not). A note to fellow skeptics: 74% of Americans feel that “astrology doesn’t have to be scientific to be meaningful and valid.” But there are other reasons to consider it as a potential antidote to the generational divide.

The average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day. We all need help.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the average adult makes around 35,000 decisions daily. Even more surprising? Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman believes that 95% of those are made with our subconscious minds.  

Even those hyper-intellectual and rational types who pride themselves on following facts still make decisions with intuition, biases, and reactions that they’re unaware of consciously. 

When I was 21 and about to graduate from the University of Michigan, I was brimming with institutional knowledge—and utterly clueless about life. I needed to complement my education with inner tools, something to help me understand who I uniquely was—my strengths, my blind spots, my potential. When I stumbled upon astrology, it filled in the parts of the picture that my BFA didn’t and helped me make sense of myself.

Comfort and motivation

Much like sitting down with a caring person who believes in our potential, an encouraging horoscope can create the positive experience of feeling seen and validated. 

In the Harris Poll, 61% of respondents agreed that “astrology provides comfort in uncertain times by serving as a reassuring friend for those seeking guidance.” 

When we’re stuck and overwhelmed, we need hope fast. Studies have found that validation lights up the reward centers of our brain, which releases dopamine and gets us back in action.  

Given the world that modern workers face, especially with less life experience and savings if they’re under 35, it makes sense that astrology can be a beacon, not to mention the building blocks of a bridge to the generational divide.

Stress and productivity

In the Edubirdie study, 65% of young people surveyed believe astrology helps reduce anxiety and increase their confidence. 

According to a Gallup poll, boomers have the lowest workplace stress levels and the highest engagement. That may be due to their increased levels of security in life, from family support to experience in their industries.

With overwhelming college loans, a sky-high cost of living, and an ever-shifting job market, younger generations have less certainty in their careers than ever. It’s no surprise then, that they want to work for a company that invests in their growth and values their contributions. 

Astrology is one of the signals people can use to say, “Hi, this is me—my strengths and stumbling blocks. I work best in these conditions and if you want to get the maximum value from me, let’s create an environment where I can thrive.”

Age and access

When I stumbled upon astrology in the early 1990s, I had to hunt for it. There was no Co-Star app, no free YouTube video courses, no Snapchat or TikTok feeding us intel. 

My sources were books in dusty New Age shops, quirky journals written by “star people” from Sedona and Santa Fe and later (amen!), chart-making software, and Susan Miller’s Astrology Zone website. Astrology was weird, hard to explain, and fringier than a flapper dress.

If the technology had been there, I can promise you that my peers and I would have been equally obsessed as they are now.

Tasha Beg, a 33-year-old former Wall Street analyst turned professional astrologer, went from having her first astrology reading in her late 20s to running a full-time practice in two short years.

A self-described Malaysian immigrant, Beg hit an emotional wall with her intense corporate job during the pandemic. A natal (birth) chart analysis with a young Arizona astrologer changed everything.

“I felt very disconnected,” recalls Beg. “I’m an immigrant, so my mentality was to put on the blinders—I’ve got to succeed, I’ve got to make money. But at a certain point, especially during the pandemic, it became very obvious that something wasn’t right. There was a part of me that wanted more than this cushy job and paycheck. But I had no idea what exactly that meant until I I had my chart read.” 

The epiphanies were so powerful, Beg decided to do a deep dive into astrological studies. “I credit astrology with helping me understand myself properly,” she states emphatically. “It showed that I actually had all this potential, and it was really about what I chose to do with the energy I innately possessed.”

Today, Beg hosts a growing Instagram feed, immerses herself in astrology certification courses, and has a full calendar of clients, many of them young and astro-savvy. 

“I have people who were literally born in the year 2000 and it’s striking,” says Beg. “They know the terminology. They understand the Saturn return. Astrology is just baked in as an acceptance like, ‘It’s Mercury retrograde, so we’re not going to launch anything.’” Incidentally, 62% of the Edubirdie participants say they adapt their work practices during Mercury retrograde. 

Unlike the ancients, Beg finds that her clients aren’t simply looking for their fortunes told. “It’s about working together to help them trust what comes up for them emotionally and understanding what they have at their disposal so they can make better choices.” 

Beyond labels

Those of us battling ageism (in both directions)—and actually value the contributions of people older and younger than us—know that we need to respect people’s passions, whether or not we agree with them, to bridge cultural and generational divides.

Instead, we spend far too much time trying to badger and bully people into seeing things our way, and too little effort seeking to understand why they don’t.

When we move beyond “right” and “wrong” and into curiosity, we might discover why astrology strikes such a chord.

And if we outlive astrology’s usefulness, no harm no foul. Thanks for your service, stars. Until then, I will continue looking to the sky with those who want to map their potential and purpose—without all the extra struggle.

The U.S. presidential election is dividing workers across the country. 

A recent Gallup survey found that 80% of adults believe Americans are greatly divided on the most important values—the highest level ever recorded. 

This divide in our country, shows up in our communities, on our social media feeds, and at our workplaces. 

When I was first starting out my career in corporate America, I was taught that you didn’t talk about “religion, sex, or politics” at work. My father was the first person I remember having a job at a big company. He would have his tea and toast in the morning, while reading the local newspaper, and then drive to his office. He came back around 6 p.m. from work and yelled at my brother and I to give him the television remote, so he could watch the national news. 

During this time when social media didn’t exist, there appeared to be a clear line where work ended and life outside of work began. Some leaders are still living in that old workplace paradigm. They haven’t grasped that the world of work has significantly changed. And whether they like it or not, politics will find their way into our workplaces.

According to a 2023 Glassdoor survey, political conversations are more common than you might think. About 61% of U.S employees have discussed politics with colleagues over the last year. Men (67%) are more likely than women (54%) to engage in political discussions with colleagues. And women (62%), among those ages 18 to 44, are more likely to engage in political discussions vs women ages 35 and older. And yet, younger employees part of Generation Z are less likely to be comfortable with politically diverse workplaces. 

With the presidential election quickly approaching, now is the time to make sure organizations are prepared for what will likely be another tumultuous election. Many leaders are still operating in an old paradigm when it comes to our organizations, believing that politics have no place at work. Here is my advice for how to prepare your employees for the upcoming presidential election:

Refresh your employee social media policy

It’s time to refresh and re-socialize your employee social media policy with your organization. And if you don’t have a policy, now’s the time to craft one. Some policies encourage employees to be a positive ambassador of their companies, sharing important moments like announcing the launch of a new product into the marketplace. Most policies will remind employees to ensure that what you are posting is public company information and that nothing you plan to share is confidential. And this is a key moment to reiterate that the company won’t tolerate sharing or supporting hate speech online. 

When it comes to social media, I coach colleagues to follow a rule I have followed for most of my career: I don’t connect with my boss or my team on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok while we are working together. I may choose to connect with them when we no longer work together. Everyone is entitled to their own views and opinions, and particularly the right to express who they want to support in the presidential election. Some will choose to share who they are voting for on social media. I would prefer not to engage with my boss or my team on debates on the upcoming presidential election at work.

Remind employees that we all remain ambassadors of our company online and offline outside of work. They should, of course, refrain from hate speech or promoting political violence.

No fundraising for presidential candidates at work

Another important policy to remind employees of is whether or not you allow fundraising or solicitation of any kind at work and on work devices. 

We all have causes that are important to us. Many of us are passionate and committed to issues that impact us as individuals, our family, friends, and our broader communities. 

In fact, we may be particularly passionate about a certain candidate becoming President. But no one wants to feel pressured to support candidates or causes at work. Particularly if it’s your boss inviting you to attend a political fundraiser or a colleague asking you to attend a rally for a candidate.

I believe we should encourage employees to devote their personal time to making the changes they wish to see in our greater world—instead of asking colleagues to participate in fundraising efforts for candidates. In fact, many companies offer employees days off to volunteer outside of work to devote personal time to causes important to them. Leaders should also remind people that voting is one of the biggest ways they can enact change. And importantly, leaders should give employees time off to vote.

If as a company you donate to political action committees (PACs), be prepared to field questions from employees. PACs are vehicles to collect campaign contributions for political candidates. Some organizations will encourage their employees to donate to PACs, some of which support candidates for local, state, and federal office. 

Some company’s use PACs to enhance their voice on important issues impacting their business—also known as “lobbying”. 

DoorDash is an example of a company who started its own PAC, to expand its presence and influence in Washington. “We’re looking forward to supporting those who share our values and mission of growing and empowering local economies,” said Campbell Millum, a spokesperson for DoorDash. The company has also hired a prominent lobbyist and is focused on pushing back on how gig workers are defined by the government.

If your organization pursues the path of creating a PAC, understand that you can, and should, be held accountable for the lobbying that you fund. 

Remember to honor and respect our differences and views

Ultimately, we should be careful when painting colleagues as “good people” or “bad people” based on who they think should become the next President of the United States. A manager can have different political views than their employee, but still be supportive of their career. 

If you do enter discussions about the U.S. presidential election at work, remember that we all have different life experiences, values, and beliefs. If you choose to enter these conversations at work, refrain from labeling people in your mind. And remember, there’s “no winning” in a productive conversation. 

As Jahmaal Marshall, Founder and CEO of Listen Then Speak, advises that when entering potentially emotionally charged conversations, people should “begin with the end in mind.” He offers that we start difficult conversations at work with kindness and empathy. And that we understand the objectives: to learn about lived experiences that inform their beliefs, to understand a view point that’s different from your own, and commit to disagreeing with kindness and respect. Marshall advises that we swiftly end conversations that become heated arguments. “Remove yourself when you know they will no longer be productive and could damage your work relationships,” he says. 

There is no longer a line that exists where work ends and life outside of work begins. Political conversations happen in our workplaces. Many of our coworkers will engage in conversations when it comes to this year’s U.S. presidential election. Now is the time to proactively prepare your organization because the next few weeks will undoubtably be stressful for many of us.

Global destruction of nature has reached unprecedented extremes.

As the United Nations two-week COP16 biodiversity summit kicks off on Monday in Cali, Colombia, here is what you need to know about nature’s rapid decline – and its importance to the global economy.

Animals and plants

Plants and animals play significant parts in keeping nature humming, from cycling nutrients throughout an ecosystem to aerating soils and engineering rivers. Without plants and animals, the world would not be habitable for humans.

However, more than a quarter of the world’s known species, or a total of about 45,300 species, are now threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

Animals on the verge of extinction include Mexico’s vaquita porpoise, northern white rhinoceros in Africa, and the red wolf in the United States.

Monitored populations of wild animals had shrunk by 73% globally by 2020 compared with 1970 figures, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Forests

Because forests are home to the most plant and animal species in any ecosystem, including 68% of mammal species, scientists consider deforestation levels to be a good proxy for nature destruction.

In 2021, more than 100 countries pledged to halt deforestation and woodland degradation by 2030. As of 2023, the amount of land deforested was 45% higher than where it should be in order to meet the 2030 goal, according to the Forest Declaration Assessment, an annual analysis released by a coalition of research and civil society organisations.

While the rate of deforestation has declined in Brazil’s Amazon, it has gone up in Bolivia, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the analysis shows.

Scientists also worry about woodland degradation, with fires, logging and other destructive forces damaging forests but not completely destroying them. The assessment showed that the goal of ending degradation is 20% off track.

Fishing and oceans

Fishing is the leading cause of marine wildlife destruction, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the top global science authority on nature.

More than 40 countries, with a combined population of 3.2 billion people, rely on seafood for at least 20% of their nutritional protein, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Roughly 38% of fish stocks are being overfished, compared with about 10% in the mid-1970s, according to the FAO. WWF says overfishing is also destabilizing coral reef ecosystems, which provide shelter, food and nursing grounds to a quarter of the world’s marine life.

This year has seen the world’s fourth mass bleaching of corals, with more than half of the reef areas globally bleaching from high sea temperatures.

Farming

Agriculture drives some 90% of tropical deforestation, according to WWF, as jungles make way to soy farms, cattle ranches, palm oil plantations and other mass production of commodities.

Governments pay at least $635 billion annually in subsidies for agriculture that are harmful to the environment, and likely several trillion dollars more in indirect subsidies, according to the World Bank.

Countries agreed at COP15 in 2022 to identify harmful subsidies by 2025 and to slash them by at least $500 million a year starting in 2030.

Environmentalists have also urged banks to stop offering credit to commodities sectors linked to deforestation. Between January 2023 and June 2024, banks offered a total of about $77 billion in credit to these firms, according to the Forest & Finance Coalition of research and advocacy groups.

Economic impacts

Whether it is insects pollinating crops, plants filtering fresh water supplies, or forests providing timber for construction, nature and its critters deliver a wealth of materials and services to the global economy for free.

About $44 trillion of the world’s annual economic output – or roughly half the total – relies on these natural resources and services, according to the World Economic Forum. That includes $2.1 trillion in the United States, $2.4 trillion in the European Union and $2.7 trillion in China.

The World Bank estimates that the collapse of certain ecosystem services, such as fisheries or native forests, could cost the world economy $2.7 trillion annually by 2030, about 2.3% of global output.

The U.N. Environmental Programme estimates spending on nature needs to increase to $542 billion annually by 2030, up from $200 billion as of 2022, to halt nature loss and meet climate goals.

—Jake Spring, Reuters

The 2024 hurricane season has been especially disastrous, and the casualties and widespread damage from flooding and high winds in towns like Cedar Key, Florida, call to mind another historic hurricane, the Labor Day hurricane of 1935.

As one of the editors of “The Letters of Ernest Hemingway Volume 6 (1934-1936),” with Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel, I am reminded of the eyewitness account that the writer, then a resident of Key West, Florida, gave of the catastrophic storm that leveled Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key and took the lives of more than 400 people, many of them World War I veterans.

Then, as now, the aftermath of a natural disaster included political finger-pointing.

Today the debates center around how resources from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are allocated or how climate change contributes to the intensity of the storms.

Back then, Hemingway had a different beef with the government, blaming the deaths of hundreds of World War I veterans on the failure to evacuate Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key ahead of the storm.

The calm before the storm

Hemingway was no stranger to hurricanes.

A serious deep-sea angler who fished the waters off Florida, he kept an eye on weather patterns. Hurricane season was an anticipated, if dreaded, annual event.

“Now the lousy hurricanes are starting,” he wrote his friends Jane and Grant Mason in June 1934. “Wish we would get lots of east wind and current … and then have a fine july and august without hurricanes.” Knowing that these conditions were unlikely, he jokingly asked the Masons “and what do you want for xmas Mr. and Mrs. Mason yourselves?”

In a Sept. 30, 1934, letter, he wrote friends Gerald and Sara Murphy with hopes that he would get through the rest of hurricane season without incident: “no hurricanes yet […] if we get through the next 20 [days] are all right,” and he was glad that he “can fish without having to tie [the boat] up somewhere up some creek.”

The next day, he wrote to fellow novelist John Dos Passos, “Hurricane months if you dont get a hurricane are fine.”

‘Not a building of any sort standing’

But the following year, when the hurricanes did come, it was not fine.

Over Sept. 2-3, 1935, a hurricane made landfall in the Florida Keys. Occurring in the days before storms were given names, the Labor Day hurricane, as it is commonly known, was the first recorded Category 5 hurricane in the U.S.

It remains the third-most intense storm on record in the Atlantic basin, with a barometric pressure drop to 892 millibars and wind gusts exceeding 200 mph. Much of its damage was caused by the storm surge, and the Overseas Railroad, which had been completed in 1912 and connected the Florida Keys to the mainland, was destroyed and would not be rebuilt.

After the storm, Hemingway wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, describing its aftermath.

Though communications were down and the island was cut off from the mainland, Key West had sustained relatively little damage.

Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key, however, were a different story.

“Imagine you have read about it in the papers but nothing could give an idea of the destruction,” Hemingway writes. “The foliage absolutely stripped as though by fire for forty miles and the land looking like the abandoned bed of a river. Not a building of any sort standing. Over thirty miles of railway washed and blown away.”

Worse yet were the human casualties: He notes that the last time he witnessed so many dead in one place was in Europe during World War I as a Red Cross ambulance driver, adding, “We made five trips with provisions for survivors to different places and nothing but dead men to eat the grub.”

Many of the victims were veterans, employed by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to work on the Overseas Highway construction project. Outraged by the federal government’s failure to send a train to evacuate the workers in time, Hemingway tells Perkins that the veterans “were practically murdered.”

Federal administrators, he adds, “had all day Sunday and all day monday to get those vets out and never did it. If they had taken half the precautions with them that we took with our boat not a one would have been lost.”

The letter contains graphic descriptions of the hundreds of dead bodies, rapidly decomposing in the Florida sun as they awaited transport to Arlington, Virginia, to be buried.

‘That smell you thought you’d never smell again’

Hemingway would repeat many of these same details in an article published in the Sept. 17, 1935, issue of the leftist magazine The New Masses.

The article, which Hemingway titled “Who Killed These Men?,” and which was re-titled by the editors as “Who Murdered the Vets?,” criticized the federal government for not evacuating the workers.

“Who sent nearly a thousand war veterans … to live in frame shacks on the Florida Keys in hurricane months?” Hemingway asks.

Hemingway, no stranger to the sight and smell of the dead from his experiences during World War I, was disgusted not merely by the bodies “swollen and stinking” but by what brought the veterans to the work camps to begin with.

Skeptical of the various government programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Hemingway saw the Federal Emergency Relief Administration work camps as a way for Washington to conveniently rid itself of hundreds of down-on-their-luck veterans, many of whom were experiencing what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I would like to make whoever sent them there carry just one out through the mangroves, or turn one over that lay in the sun along the fill, or tie five together so they won’t float out, or smell that smell you thought you’d never smell again, with luck,” Hemingway writes.

This impassioned response to the disaster in 1935 still resonates. Hemingway recognized that while storms are inevitable, mass casualties do not have to be. The government can’t control the weather, but it can fulfill an obligation to protect the most vulnerable in the path of the storm.

Verna Kale is an associate editor at The Letters of Ernest Hemingway and an associate research professor of English at Penn State.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We often talk about how difficult it can be when you have a toxic manager. Here at Fast Company, we’ve shared plenty of advice on how to handle a micromanager, or what to do when your boss is absent or neglects to give you important feedback. But bosses, too, can face their own share of challenges navigating tricky relationships with people they manage. So what do you do when you have to deal with a toxic employee?

Check your assumptions

First, it’s important to identify what behaviors are actually toxic, business consultant Vincent Sanderson writes in Fast Company. “Once we start using that label, we risk seeing everything they do through that lens,” he says. “For example, if they challenge someone, stand up for themselves, or dig their heels in because they think something is important, we might automatically assume they’re being difficult or toxic.” (There are also signs you can look out for while hiring, to ensure you don’t bring someone onto your team with potentially toxic traits.)

In certain cases, an employee who seems difficult might actually be grappling with personal issues that are affecting how they show up at work. Or they might be lacking support from you or your team and feel like their voice isn’t being heard. When the problem seems to go deeper, however, it’s best to start with a one-on-one conversation discussing their behavior.

Listen effectively

The goal is to share what you’ve observed about the employee and discuss how to proceed in a constructive, collaborative way. “Remember, when you go into this conversation, you’re there to listen,” Sanderson writes. He recommends saying something like, “I can see this is something you disagree with,” or “I get the sense this is frustrating for you to talk about,” if an employee gets defensive or frustrated during the conversation.

Consider the team

All that said, it’s still important to set clear boundaries for their conduct going forward—especially if they don’t show signs of changing after an initial conversation. After all, toxic employees can put a strain on an entire team or even organization, leading to higher rates of burnout among their colleagues. “At the end of the day, you have to protect the rest of the team, too,” Sanderson writes. “You can’t allow someone to continuously behave in a way that disrupts others.”

October has brought the northern lights, a Hunter’s supermoon, and now a meteor shower? Why, yes, that’s exactly right.

This month has been a treat for sky-gazers all over the United States, and this weekend gives us another chance to look up with the Orionid meteor shower.

Here’s everything to know.

What is the Orionid meteor shower, anyway?

The Orionid meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through debris (ice or dust) left behind from Halley’s comet, creating what we know as shooting stars. That comet swings by earth about every 75 years, and is expected to return in 2061. (If you remember when it was last seen in 1986, like me and some of my colleagues at Fast Company, that probably dates you.)

The Orionids are considered one of the most beautiful showers of the year, according to NASA. They peak mid-October and are known for their brightness and speed (about 41 miles per second), and can leave seconds or minutes of glowing “trains” and sometimes fireballs of exploding light.

They get their name from the constellation Orion, which is where they appear to radiate from in the sky. But don’t look at Orion hoping to see the blazing stars, because you may miss out. The meteor shower is best seen by viewing the entire night sky.

When can I see the Orionid meteor shower?

Grab a warm jacket and maybe some binoculars, and head outside late Sunday night, October 20, into early Monday morning, because you could be in for some serious stargazing.

The Orionid meteor shower is expected to peak between midnight and dawn at a rate of about 20 meteors visible per hour (although they can produce up to 80 meteors an hour).

But be warned: This year, viewers may have some trouble seeing the meteor shower because of the brightness of the moon.

Where do meteors come from?

Meteors are parts of broken asteroids and leftover particles from comets. When comets pass by the sun, the dust they emit eventually creates a “dusty trail” around their orbits. Then when Earth passes through these trails, they interact with our atmosphere, creating those dazzling shows of light in the sky.

NASA’s viewing tips for the Orionids

Our friends at NASA offer these tips:

• Find a viewing spot away from city or street lights.
• Lie flat on your back with your feet facing southeast. You may want to bring a blanket or a lounge chair.
• Look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors.
• Be patient. The show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.

And finally, have fun! We suspect there will be lots of pictures all over social media come Monday morning, so don’t forget your phone or camera if you wish to add your own!

On Election Day, people stream out of their polling locations proudly wearing “I voted” stickers to show the world that they did their part. But not everyone gets the opportunity to vote. 

The United States has a long history of voter suppression; all around the country, people are denied the right to vote due to policies, rules, and efforts aimed specifically at keeping them away from the ballot box.

Now, designers have come up with a new sticker for people who want to vote, but cannot. Rob Colucci and Zack Roif of creative agency Public Domain worked with VoteAmerica to create the “I Couldn’t Vote” sticker to raise awareness about voter suppression, which impacts 30 million people according to VoteAmerica.

“We hijacked the ‘I voted’ sticker to really kind of give a voice and a face to the millions of people that are suppressed by voting,” says Colucci. 

What is voter suppression and who does it affect?

Voter suppression efforts have surged since the 2020 election. Since 2020, there has been a handful of legislation passed, including 78 laws and 400 proposed bills, that disproportionately affect the voting rights of minorities, the elderly, and first-time voters. 

“For example, in Texas, you can vote with a handgun license, but not with a student ID,” says Colucci. “Which is pretty shocking and really kind of paints the picture of who they’re trying to get to vote and who they’re trying to prevent from voting.”

More than 100,000 polling locations have closed since 2018, and many ballot drop boxes have also been removed, making it harder and harder for people trying to access polling locations. According to a recent study on polling closures, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia have been most impacted.

What are these stickers doing to counter voter suppression?

The stickers come in two designs that replicate the typical “I voted” stickers. The first one is a small oval sticker with the American flag and the words “I couldn’t vote.” The second one is bigger, circular, with red, white, and blue stripes and the words “I couldn’t vote” in the middle surrounded by stars. The stickers will be sent to different legislatures and states.

The stickers are part of a broader campaign to educate people about voter suppression. The project also has a video element that shows interviews with people who have experienced voter suppression, putting a face to the stories. 

“Once you hear one story [of voter suppression], you sort of can’t look away from the problem,” says Roif. 

This project encourages people to make sure their documents are good to go come November. On Instagram, “I couldn’t vote” will be posting resources such as polling location finders and will encourage people to check out VoteAmerica’s comprehensive resources for voting. 

You can order the stickers for free at Icouldntvote.com.