It used to be a time when showing up to the task at hand was somehow the guarantor of success. I lived most of my life in that time.
Well, not anymore.
For a few good decades, the compounding effect of just being there every single day for whatever you set out to do was enough to outweigh the opposing forces. The world was functioning in such a way that some sort of predictability was interwoven in its deepest fabric.
I was born 50+ years ago. The WWII survivors generation was still alive. Technology was in its infancy. Politics was still a matter of diplomacy, not a matter of sheer force. People were functioning on an even field — some more than others, that’s true, but the field was overwhelmingly even. In that context, persistence was the safest way to “make it.”
The world we live in today couldn’t be more different. AI is now running the show, and the mind-boggling thing is that this “AI” is literally a handful of companies. And their investors. Period. These are the new, hidden in plain sight, overlords.
If I should browse back through human history to find similar situations — ones in which the world was ruled by an incredibly small elite — the first matching moment is the Mongolian Empire. I can already hear the pushback: “Look at that guy, he’s delusional.” You have the right to believe that. I bet many of the people living during the Mongolian Empire had the same thoughts. Most of them ended up dead. The few who survived were smart enough to accept Genghis Khan’s conditions, surrender, and live under his rule.
Asymmetrical Advantages
During Genghis Khan’s time, the Mongolians had an asymmetrical advantage: speed. Their horseback warfare was no match for any army back then. That allowed them to control the military game. And the world.
Today, AI labs have an asymmetrical advantage too: they can build whatever they want, faster than anyone else. Even more, they know what others want to build. They have a real-time window into the collective mind. They literally see where the world is going and have the resources to get there before anyone else.
So they just rule the world, without you even noticing.
And now, try to put yourself in their shoes: if you had the ability to rule the world, would you brag about it? Or just pretend you’re doing it “for the best of humanity” while quietly following your own agenda? Would you create more friction, or — using your very own influencing abilities, now part of the society itself — steer the collective opinion towards something neutral, or even slightly appreciative towards your brand?
The Chronicle of an Announced Acquihire
If you think the Mongolian Empire comparison was far-fetched, hold your breath — I’m coming in even stronger.
Have you ever heard of OpenClaw (or ClawdBot)? It’s an autonomous agent that went viral literally overnight, less than two weeks ago. Its main differentiator was that it can connect to your messenger — WhatsApp, Telegram — and interact with you from there. Basically an always-on assistant. The immediate impact, especially for non-tech users, was huge. It transformed a bunch of code into something that seemed “real,” because it could talk to you. So the hype was instant, unstoppable, and still rippling as we speak.
A couple of days ago, the main developer of this project was hired by OpenAI. The OpenClaw work was parked in a foundation, but the IP locked inside that developer’s head is now with an AI overlord.
And here’s where it gets interesting. Why did this specific always-on agent go viral overnight? Why not others — like nanobot, from which I forked aigernon, by the way. How does virality happen on the internet? Is it organic, or are there other actors working silently in the background, unseen and unaccountable?
Stay with me for 30 seconds while I sketch an alternative version of events. What if things actually happened this way:
OpenAI wants to push a specific type of product involving audio conversations with customers.
Using their intelligence capabilities, OpenAI surfaces more and more information about an Open Source project called ClawdBot — one primarily wired to their competitor’s model, Claude.
soon, ClawdBot goes viral, acquiring something OpenAI cannot buy directly from their commercial position: grassroots legitimacy and genuine community hype.
OpenAI hires the main developer, signaling they will deliver “what the masses want, but now more secure, better polished.” The competitor is left behind — Anthropic even sent cease-and-desist orders demanding a name change before the acquihire, which suggests they suspected something.
End result: OpenAI implements its own agenda, with wide community support, and lands a clean hit on its main competitor.
At this point, this is a conspiracy theory scenario. It may look plausible from a respectable distance, but there’s no proof and it’s essentially impossible to obtain any. All we can honestly say is “maybe, but probably not.”
Amplifying Yourself
I brought up this story not for drama – tech drama happens every day. But this specific one is a live demonstration of how the game is played now. Organic effort, community trust, years of coding — all of it absorbed in a single strategic move by someone with more resources, more intelligence, and more reach. Even more: you, the very creator of the product, never had a word in the story, you were just a pawn.
That’s the new operating system of the world.
The question isn’t whether this is fair. It’s: what do you do knowing this is how things work?
THIS is what you’re competing against. THIS is the scale of the world’s flexibility, and THESE are the forces at work.
Do you think you can survive this by just “showing up”?
The game has changed, and just to stay afloat you need a 5x on top of your current value. This is not an abstract 5x. If you’re a developer, you need at least five more versions of yourself, with different capabilities and angles:
a marketing you
a research you
a customer support you
an extra team of coders
an always-on CEO of you
This is just to stay afloat. To keep being there and seen. This doesn’t guarantee any form of success. It just keeps you alive, somehow. It is, in essence, your submission to the new conquerors — allowing you to keep living for a while.
If you want to do more than survive this new AI Genghis Khan wave, you need to 100x yourself.
The 100x isn’t about working harder. It’s about building leverage that compounds without you. Your ideas need to travel further than your hands can carry them. Your name needs to be in rooms you’re not in – and be recognizable in a second. Your framework, your method, your angle — needs to be so distinctly yours that even when someone larger absorbs the wave you created, they can’t absorb you.
The Mongolians conquered everything. But they couldn’t conquer the cultures that were too deeply rooted to be replaced. They ruled over them, yes. But those cultures survived. Some of them outlasted the empire entirely.
Your goal is not to beat the AI overlords. Your goal is to be un-erasable enough that they have to work around you.
Freestyle skier Quinn Dehlinger punched his Olympic ticket eight months before most of his fellow 2026 Olympians. Dehlinger found out last June that he’d earned a spot in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. It was a huge relief after he barely missed out on making the 2022 Beijing Team. It was a game-changer, mentally, heading into World Cup races this season.”Going into the competitions this year, if I got sick or had a minor injury, it lifted a little of the weight off the shoulders,” Dehlinger said. Dehlinger lives in Park City, Utah, where aerial skiers train year-round at the Utah Olympic Park. But he grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, skiing at Perfect North Slopes.It’s a far cry from the mountains out west. But it’s become a pipeline for aerial athletes. In fact, four skiers on the national team are from the Cincinnati area.Top aerial skiers spend their summers in Park City training at the Spence Eccles Olympic Freestyle Pool. The pool is aerated. Skiers go off plastic jumps similar to a regular ski jump. The aerated water provides a soft, safe landing and pushes skiers to the surface. The only hitch? Skiers have to hike more than 100 stairs to get to the top of the ramp.Aerialists are often called acrobats on skis. They rely on strength, flexibility and visualization techniques.”When you’re going down that jump at 45 miles an hour, and it’s 14 feet tall and 71 degrees, it looks like a wall of ice,” Dehlinger said. “You’re visualizing dropping your arms in a specific spot so that it either speeds up your twist or stops your twist, or helps you slow down your flip, or just controls everything.”Dehlinger said fans often get one thing wrong about his sport.”The biggest misconception is that we just don’t get scared. We do get scared, but we just deal with a different way. We just push it down and do what we need to do,” Dehlinger said. And what Dehlinger needs to do now is get to the top of the ramp at Milan-Cortina. He’s already visualizing gold and ready to find out if he’s got what it takes. The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games start Feb. 6.
Freestyle skier Quinn Dehlinger punched his Olympic ticket eight months before most of his fellow 2026 Olympians.
Dehlinger found out last June that he’d earned a spot in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. It was a huge relief after he barely missed out on making the 2022 Beijing Team.
It was a game-changer, mentally, heading into World Cup races this season.
“Going into the competitions this year, if I got sick or had a minor injury, it lifted a little of the weight off the shoulders,” Dehlinger said.
Dehlinger lives in Park City, Utah, where aerial skiers train year-round at the Utah Olympic Park. But he grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, skiing at Perfect North Slopes.
It’s a far cry from the mountains out west. But it’s become a pipeline for aerial athletes. In fact, four skiers on the national team are from the Cincinnati area.
Top aerial skiers spend their summers in Park City training at the Spence Eccles Olympic Freestyle Pool. The pool is aerated. Skiers go off plastic jumps similar to a regular ski jump. The aerated water provides a soft, safe landing and pushes skiers to the surface.
The only hitch? Skiers have to hike more than 100 stairs to get to the top of the ramp.
Aerialists are often called acrobats on skis. They rely on strength, flexibility and visualization techniques.
“When you’re going down that jump at 45 miles an hour, and it’s 14 feet tall and 71 degrees, it looks like a wall of ice,” Dehlinger said. “You’re visualizing dropping your arms in a specific spot so that it either speeds up your twist or stops your twist, or helps you slow down your flip, or just controls everything.”
Dehlinger said fans often get one thing wrong about his sport.
“The biggest misconception is that we just don’t get scared. We do get scared, but we just deal with a different way. We just push it down and do what we need to do,” Dehlinger said.
And what Dehlinger needs to do now is get to the top of the ramp at Milan-Cortina. He’s already visualizing gold and ready to find out if he’s got what it takes.
If winning gold medals were the only standard, almost all Olympic athletes would be considered failures.Video above: Amber Glenn opens up about mental health, coming out and her figure skating journeyA clinical psychologist with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Emily Clark’s job when the Winter Games open in Italy on Feb. 6 is to help athletes interpret what it means to be successful. Should gold medals be the only measure?Part of a 15-member staff providing psychological services, Clark nurtures athletes accustomed to triumph but who invariably risk failure.The staff deals with matters termed “mental health and mental performance.” They include topics such as motivation, anger management, anxiety, eating disorders, family issues, trauma, depression, sleep, handling pressure, travel and so forth.Clark’s area includes stress management, the importance of sleep and getting high achievers to perform at their best and avoid the temptation of looking only at results.”A lot of athletes these days are aware of the mental health component of, not just sport, but of life,” Clark said in an interview with The Associated Press. “This is an area where athletes can develop skills that can extend a career, or make it more enjoyable.” The United States is expected to take about 235 athletes to the Winter Olympics, and about 70 more to the Paralympics. But here’s the truth.”Most of the athletes who come through Team USA will not win a gold medal,” Clark said. “That’s the reality of elite sport.”Here are the numbers. The United States won gold medals in nine events in the last Winter Games in Beijing in 2022. According to Dr. Bill Mallon, an esteemed shoulder surgeon and Olympic historian, 70.8% of Winter and Summer Olympic athletes go to only one Olympics.Few are famous and successful like swimmer Michael Phelps, or skiers Mikaela Shiffrin or Lindsey Vonn.Clark said she often delivers the following message to Olympians and Paralympians: This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Focus on the process. Savor the moment.”Your job is not to win a gold medal, your job is to do the thing, and the gold medal is what happens when you do your job,” she said.”Some of this might be realigning what success looks like,” she added. “And some of this is developing resilience in the face of setbacks and failure.”Clark preaches staying on task under pressure and improving through defeat.”We get stronger by pushing ourselves to a limit where we’re at our maximum capacity — and then recovering,” she said. “When we get stressed, it impacts our attention. Staying on task or staying in line with what’s important is what we try to train for.” Kendall Gretsch has won four gold medals at the Summer and Winter Paralympics. She credits some of her success to the USOPC’s mental health services, and she described the value this way.”We have a sports psychologist who travels with us for most our season,” she said. “Just being able to touch base with them … and getting that reminder of why are you here? What is that experience you’re looking for?”American figure skater Alysa Liu is the 2025 world champion and was sixth in the 2022 Olympics. She’s a big believer in sports psychology and should be among the favorites in Italy.”I work with a sport psychologist,” she said without giving a name. “She’s incredible — like the MVP.”Of course, MVP stands — not for Most Valuable Person or Most Valuable Player — for “Most Valuable Psychologist.””I mean, she’s very helpful,” Liu added. American downhill skier Vonn will race in Italy in her sixth Olympics. At 41, she’s coming off nearly six years in retirement and will be racing on a knee made of titanium.Two-time Olympic champion Michaela Dorfmeister has suggested in jest that Vonn “should see a psychologist” for attempting such a thing in a very dangerous sport where downhill skiers reach speeds of 80 mph.Vonn shrugged off the comments and joked a few months ago that she didn’t grow up using a sport psychologist. She said her counseling came from taping messages on the tips of her skis that read: “stay forward or hands up.””I just did it myself,” she said. “I do a lot of self-talk in the starting gate.” “Sleep is an area where athletes tend to struggle for a number of reasons,” Clark said, listing issues such as travel schedules, late practices, injuries and life-related stress.”We have a lot of athletes who are parents, and lot of sleep is going to be disrupted in the early stages of parenting,” she said. “We approach sleep as a real part of performance. But it can be something that gets de-prioritized when days get busy.”Clark suggests the following for her athletes — and the rest of us: no caffeine after 3 p.m., mitigate stress before bedtime, schedule sleep at about the same time daily, sleep in a dark room and get 7-9 hours.Dani Aravich is a two-time Paralympian — she’s been in both the Summer and Winter Games — and will be skiing in the upcoming Paralympics. She said in a recent interview that she avails herself of many psychological services provided by the USOPC.”I’ve started tracking my sleep,” she said, naming Clark as a counselor. “Especially being an athlete who has multiple jobs, sleep is going to be your No. 1 savior at all times. It’s the thing that, you know, helps mental clarity.” Clark agreed.”Sleep is the cornerstone of healthy performance,” she added.
If winning gold medals were the only standard, almost all Olympic athletes would be considered failures.
Video above: Amber Glenn opens up about mental health, coming out and her figure skating journey
A clinical psychologist with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Emily Clark’s job when the Winter Games open in Italy on Feb. 6 is to help athletes interpret what it means to be successful.
Should gold medals be the only measure?
Part of a 15-member staff providing psychological services, Clark nurtures athletes accustomed to triumph but who invariably risk failure.
The staff deals with matters termed “mental health and mental performance.” They include topics such as motivation, anger management, anxiety, eating disorders, family issues, trauma, depression, sleep, handling pressure, travel and so forth.
Clark’s area includes stress management, the importance of sleep and getting high achievers to perform at their best and avoid the temptation of looking only at results.
“A lot of athletes these days are aware of the mental health component of, not just sport, but of life,” Clark said in an interview with The Associated Press. “This is an area where athletes can develop skills that can extend a career, or make it more enjoyable.”
The United States is expected to take about 235 athletes to the Winter Olympics, and about 70 more to the Paralympics. But here’s the truth.
“Most of the athletes who come through Team USA will not win a gold medal,” Clark said. “That’s the reality of elite sport.”
Here are the numbers. The United States won gold medals in nine events in the last Winter Games in Beijing in 2022. According to Dr. Bill Mallon, an esteemed shoulder surgeon and Olympic historian, 70.8% of Winter and Summer Olympic athletes go to only one Olympics.
Few are famous and successful like swimmer Michael Phelps, or skiers Mikaela Shiffrin or Lindsey Vonn.
Clark said she often delivers the following message to Olympians and Paralympians: This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Focus on the process. Savor the moment.
“Your job is not to win a gold medal, your job is to do the thing, and the gold medal is what happens when you do your job,” she said.
“Some of this might be realigning what success looks like,” she added. “And some of this is developing resilience in the face of setbacks and failure.”
Clark preaches staying on task under pressure and improving through defeat.
“We get stronger by pushing ourselves to a limit where we’re at our maximum capacity — and then recovering,” she said. “When we get stressed, it impacts our attention. Staying on task or staying in line with what’s important is what we try to train for.”
Kendall Gretsch has won four gold medals at the Summer and Winter Paralympics. She credits some of her success to the USOPC’s mental health services, and she described the value this way.
“We have a sports psychologist who travels with us for most our season,” she said. “Just being able to touch base with them … and getting that reminder of why are you here? What is that experience you’re looking for?”
American figure skater Alysa Liu is the 2025 world champion and was sixth in the 2022 Olympics. She’s a big believer in sports psychology and should be among the favorites in Italy.
“I work with a sport psychologist,” she said without giving a name. “She’s incredible — like the MVP.”
Of course, MVP stands — not for Most Valuable Person or Most Valuable Player — for “Most Valuable Psychologist.”
“I mean, she’s very helpful,” Liu added.
American downhill skier Vonn will race in Italy in her sixth Olympics. At 41, she’s coming off nearly six years in retirement and will be racing on a knee made of titanium.
Two-time Olympic champion Michaela Dorfmeister has suggested in jest that Vonn “should see a psychologist” for attempting such a thing in a very dangerous sport where downhill skiers reach speeds of 80 mph.
Vonn shrugged off the comments and joked a few months ago that she didn’t grow up using a sport psychologist. She said her counseling came from taping messages on the tips of her skis that read: “stay forward or hands up.”
“I just did it myself,” she said. “I do a lot of self-talk in the starting gate.”
“Sleep is an area where athletes tend to struggle for a number of reasons,” Clark said, listing issues such as travel schedules, late practices, injuries and life-related stress.
“We have a lot of athletes who are parents, and lot of sleep is going to be disrupted in the early stages of parenting,” she said. “We approach sleep as a real part of performance. But it can be something that gets de-prioritized when days get busy.”
Clark suggests the following for her athletes — and the rest of us: no caffeine after 3 p.m., mitigate stress before bedtime, schedule sleep at about the same time daily, sleep in a dark room and get 7-9 hours.
Dani Aravich is a two-time Paralympian — she’s been in both the Summer and Winter Games — and will be skiing in the upcoming Paralympics. She said in a recent interview that she avails herself of many psychological services provided by the USOPC.
“I’ve started tracking my sleep,” she said, naming Clark as a counselor. “Especially being an athlete who has multiple jobs, sleep is going to be your No. 1 savior at all times. It’s the thing that, you know, helps mental clarity.”
Clark agreed.
“Sleep is the cornerstone of healthy performance,” she added.
Today, my book “Gravitational Habits for Financial Resilience” goes live on Apple Books, Google Play and Amazon. It has been in pre-order for more than 2 weeks, so if you placed an order (thank you, you know who you are) you should get it delivered today. It packs a punch for an actionable guide, and it’s just $9.99. Ta-daa!
The Book Story
I didn’t have in plan yet another book this year, honestly. I already have a handful of titles published, and that felt like enough. Until a couple of months ago, that is. That’s when I realized I am working with displaced pieces of a puzzle, and maybe it’s time for the puzzle to finally be assembled.
What do I mean by “working with displaced pieces” and what specifically is this “work” about? The first answer to this question would be “money, the work I’m talking about is money”. But actually the book isn’t about money. It’s about habits that control money.
This matters. A lot. It matters to calibrate your expectations (sorry, no “get rich quick” thingie, no “making money online system”). And it matters, at a more profound level, as the basic understanding of how our lives are shaped not by motivation, not by sudden jolts or epiphanies, but by what we do each and every day, on autopilot.
The Gravitational Nature of Habits
A few years ago I discovered something very subtle, about the gravitational nature of habits. It works basically like this: every time you perform an action, you add some “mass” to it. Simple, right?
Let’s say you start walking every day 2 km. You just added a little bit of subtle mental “mass” to the action of walking. Next day, you walk again. A little bit more of a “mass” is added again. Third day, you feel tired. Unmotivated. Lazy. But you walk again, regardless. The walk feels like dread and you’re not actually enjoying it, you’d rather stay on the couch today.
But here’s the thing: the mass doesn’t care about how you feel. It’s still added. The tiny “boulder” about walking is getting bigger and bigger.
So you grow this small “planet” with each and every tiny mass added to it, until, one day, it just pulls you towards it, effortless. That’s how gravitational habits work. And that’s what the book is about: creating and maintaining habits so powerful, you’d be pulled towards maintaining a stable financial line, without any effort.
What This Book Is – And What Isn’t
It’s an actionable guide. Loads of checkboxes, templates and routines. Very little philosophy. I kept the philosophy inside of the blog, if you really want to update your operating system with the most important principles, just browse the financial resilience articles. But the book, it’s something designed to help you immediately, to jumpstart your habit formation routine from the first page.
This book is for you if you’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck, if you’ve tried budgeting apps that didn’t stick, or if you simply want to stop worrying about money. It’s for freelancers navigating irregular income, employees building a safety net, or anyone who wants their finances to run on autopilot instead of anxiety.
Subsequently, this book is not about making money quickly. Also, not about making money slowly – or even about creating income. There are, of course, significant sections about how to approach income creation, but the core of the book is about how to survive (and even thrive) even when income is thin. How to maintain the mindset and the routines that keep you resilient regardless of the context.
The Immediate Perks
Enough talk, let’s move to the juicy parts. Here’s the table of contents:
Jumpstart: The Three Immediate Habits
Who This Book Is For
Introduction
The Assess-Decide-Do Framework
Chapter 1: The Pain Point — Why Financial Chaos Happens
Chapter 2: Habits vs. Motivation — Why Habits Win
Chapter 3: The Core Financial Habits
Chapter 4: The Other Side — Expanding Income
Chapter 5: Financial Adjustments — Protecting Your System
Chapter 6: Implementation — The Step-by-Step System
Chapter 7: Maintenance — Long-Term Sustainability
Conclusion: Gravity Does the Work
Appendix A: Complete Checklists and Templates
Appendix B: ADD Beyond Finances
Closing Thoughts
Further Reading
And here are the immediate perks:
if you are a free subscriber to my newsletter, you will get 1 chapter included in the weekly send, which is, wait… yes, it’s today
if you are a paid newsletter subscriber (monthly, or yearly, doesn’t matter) you get the full book – period
You can subscribe to my newsletter by filling the form below, it literally takes 5 seconds.
And you can get the book on your favorite platform, for just $9.99, right now: Apple Books, Google Play or Amazon.
Financial institutions are concerned about the resiliency of their AI operations after core internet service provider Cloudflare suffered its second outage in a week. According to Downdetector, 606 outage reports were filed for Cloudflare by 10:50 a.m. ET today. Resiliency is becoming a major topic for internet service providers amid the recent outages, Sanjay Sidhwani, […]
The makers of Kesar Singh are excited to reveal their upcoming inspiring slice-of-life drama featuring Arbaaz Khan and Bhumika Chawla in leading roles, a heartfelt and authentic story that showcases two cherished actors in a unique new pairing on-screen.
Shot authentically across the beautiful and vibrant landscapes of Uttar Pradesh and Wai, the film shows the raw charm and emotional depth. The environment transforms into a character as Kesar Singh delves into the challenges, aspirations, and minor triumphs that elevate ordinary individuals into remarkable survivors. Following her iconic debut alongside Salman Khan in Tere Naam, Bhumika’s new pairing with Arbaaz Khan revives a special era for the audience while presenting a refreshing on-screen chemistry. Arbaaz brings grit and sincerity to the movie, while Bhumika adds emotional strength and quiet resilience.
Bhumika Chawla statement
“This film came to me like a blessing. Kesar’s journey is emotional, inspiring, and beautifully human. Working with Arbaaz has been wonderful, and being part of such a meaningful story feels truly special. Cannot wait for the audiences to witness kesar singh’s journey on screen”
Producer Parimal Shah statement
“Kesar Singh is not just a film, it’s a tribute to resilience and never-say-die spirit. We wanted to create a story that uplifts without losing authenticity, and Arbaaz Khan and Bhumika Chawla have brought extraordinary truth to their roles. We’re excited to bring this heartfelt journey to audiences soon.”
About Parimal Shah
Parimal Shah is a well known person in the Bollywood industry, boasting more than 25 years of expertise. He has worked alongside some of India’s most renowned directors and production companies, such as Balaji Telefilms, Vipul Amrutlal Shah, Prakash Jha, Karan Johar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sudhir Mishra, Anees Bazmee, Nishi Prem, Rajesh Mapuskar, Karan Malhotra, and others.
Since 2011, he has been a crucial figure in overseeing the renowned Garden Retreat Bungalow in Borivali West, a significant filming location where blockbuster films like Thamma, Param Sundari, Sky Force, Dabangg 2, Singham Returns, and numerous other projects have been filmed.
Parimal Shah runs his own production company, Equator Entertainments, which has created many commercial films for brands like Miraj Cinema. His recent achievement is the production of the Hindi feature film Kesar Singh, featuring Arbaaz Khan and Bhoomika Chawla.
About the Movie
Kesar Singh is an inspiring, emotionally gripping story about the essence of life and the courage to never give up. Based on genuine human emotions, it honors resilience, inner strength, and the determination to rise after every fall making its narrative universally relatable. Produced by Parimal Shah and Vinit Shah through Equator Entertainments, and Directed by Jasbeer, the film guarantees a heartfelt and realistic cinematic journey. Kesar Singh has finished shooting and is now in the editing phase. The movie is arriving shortly. Upcoming updates, first impressions, posters, and teasers will be revealed soon.
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Today we’re going to talk about mice, Karpathy and the planet Venus. Believe me, there is a very strong connection between all of these. We will start backwards, and talk about Venus first.
Venus as An Immortal Super Being
The most impressive poem of the most prominent Romanian poet, Mihai Eminescu, is called Luceafarul. It’s the story of the morning star, Venus, which fell in love with a human earthling. The core of this is the impossibility of living an earthly life while you are basically immortal (the lifespan of the star will outlive any human being). The loneliness of the star and its deep suffering is haunting. I still remember those lines:
From chaos, Lord, I came alive My thirst to chaos goes
(Din haos Doamne-am aparut / Si m-as intoarce-n haos)
Ok, I see you’re struggling. What does it have to do with you? What’s this nonsense?
Bear with me.
Humans Need Entropy — Or That’s What Karpathy Said
Andrej Karpathy — former OpenAI researcher, Tesla AI director, generally smart human — dropped something equally haunting in a recent interview: humans collapse over time. Not physically (well, that too), but mentally. We become predictable. We revisit the same thoughts, repeat the same phrases, our learning rates decline. Children shock us because they haven’t collapsed yet — they’re still high-entropy systems, unpredictable and fresh. Adults? We’re overfitted to our lives.
His solution? We need entropy. Constantly. Talking to different people, exposing ourselves to new ideas, putting ourselves in situations that don’t fit our comfortable patterns. Without this injection of chaos, we collapse into repetitive loops — the mental equivalent of playing the same three jokes over and over. And here’s the kicker: he was originally talking about AI models that train on their own outputs and become increasingly sterile and repetitive. Then he realized: wait, humans do this too.
The Perfect Mice Colony
In the late 1960s, researcher John B. Calhoun built a mouse utopia. Unlimited food, water, perfect temperature, no predators, ample nesting space. He called it “Universe 25.” Started with 4 pairs of mice and watched what happened. At first, population explosion — exactly as you’d expect. Then something broke.
As the colony hit around 2,200 mice (well below the physical capacity), behavior collapsed. Males became either hyper-aggressive or completely withdrawn. A class of “beautiful ones” emerged — males who only groomed themselves and ate, avoiding all social interaction. Females abandoned their young. Courtship rituals vanished. Despite abundant resources, the colony went extinct. The mice didn’t need more food or space — they needed meaningful challenges, territorial disputes, the entropy of survival. Perfect optimization killed them. And it happened the same in all 25 identical experiments – yes, he did this 25 times.
Putting It All Together: You NEED Chaos In Your Life
Here’s what Eminescu knew, what Calhoun discovered, and what Karpathy articulated: life thrives at the boundary between comfort and chaos. Not in pure chaos — that’s just destruction. Not in pure comfort — that’s the mouse utopia, that’s the collapsed adult repeating the same thoughts. You need both, in constant tension.
Venus suffers because it exists in only one state — eternal, unchanging, comfortable in its immortality. The mice died because they existed in only one state — safe, fed, unchanging. We collapse when we exist in only one state — same routines, same thoughts, same comfortable patterns.
The solution isn’t to abandon comfort entirely. It’s to deliberately inject entropy into your system. Start that weird hobby you’ve been putting off. Move to a country where you don’t speak the language. Learn an instrument at an age when everyone tells you it’s “too late.” These aren’t indulgences — they’re survival mechanisms.
Personal Choices
I started to run at 40 and finished my first marathon at 42. Then ran a 220km ultra-marathon at 45.
I moved to a new country at 48. Packed up, left everything familiar behind, started over.
Then did it again at 53, this time while learning Korean — a language that has almost nothing in common with Romanian or English, forcing my brain into completely new patterns.
Started learning guitar at 50, fumbling through chords like a teenager, building neural pathways that had been dormant for decades.
Each time, people asked why I was making my life harder. They missed the point entirely. I wasn’t making life harder — I was preventing collapse. I was staying alive in the way that matters.
You don’t need to move countries (though it helps). You need to break your patterns regularly. Take a different route to work. Talk to people you normally wouldn’t. Read books from disciplines you know nothing about. Say yes to things that make you slightly uncomfortable. The discomfort isn’t the price you pay — it’s the signal that you’re still growing, still high-entropy, still alive in the way Venus could never be.
The boundary between comfort and chaos — that’s where humans actually live. Step too far into comfort and you’re a beautiful mouse, grooming yourself while the colony dies. Stay in pure chaos and you burn out. The sweet spot is that constant dance, that deliberate injection of unpredictability into otherwise stable systems.
[There’s actually fascinating physics behind why entropy works this way in living systems — how we’re literally thermodynamic engines that require constant energy flow and disorder to maintain order. I break down the actual science in the paid version of this post, because understanding the mechanics makes the whole thing even more compelling. If you want access, subscribe in the form below – you’ll get some goodies too.]
There’s been much debate on how artificial intelligence tools will change the way people work, and that it will take jobs away from humans. Indeed, mass layoffs have abounded in recent years, while entry-level jobs seem to have disappeared. But a new report argues the merits of a third option: upskilling, reskilling, and otherwise training current employees on new roles—positions that might not exist yet, but will be vital to helping businesses remain resilient in the face of rapid change.
Those are the broad conclusions of the just released Talent Resilience Index (TRI) by labor market analytics company Lightcast, and Guild — which matches customer enterprises with education, upskilling, and retraining programs for their workforces. That effort allows businesses to retain employees by enabling them to perform new tasks created by ongoing change. In doing so, those businesses can shore up against an uncertain future, and prepare to capture trillions in extra revenue.
“More than $280 billion has already been committed to semiconductor manufacturing, with hundreds of billions more flowing into infrastructure, supply chains, clean energy, AI, and advanced nuclear,” said Guild CEO Bijal Shah in emailed comments to Inc. “These are once-in-a-generation investments, but their success depends on whether the workforce can keep up.”
Reskilling is key to keeping up, says Shah, arguing that increased workforce mobility translates to enhanced company performance and growth: “By moving employees into higher-impact roles, they unlock productivity, loyalty, and innovation.”
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Higher sales and retention
According to Guild’s TRI, upskilling and reskilling has the potential to generate $8.5 trillion in extra revenue generated by 2030. That revenue would be lost if companies pursue their current habits of filling talent needs through external hires — instead, they’d pay an average 28 percent salary premium to lure outside recruits.
By reskilling current employees instead, companies increase their internal mobility capacities, slash recruitment and onboarding costs, and allow their more valuable retrained workers to receive an average 15 percent boost in annual earnings.
In other words, the training pays for itself. “Organizations that fill 60 percent or more of roles internally achieve four times higher sales per employee than those that don’t,” the TRI notes. There are other advantages to upskilling current staff, too. Employees whose retraining allows them to move upward to new positions within the same company also stick with their companies 60 percent to 65 percent more than external hires.
But in addition to internal talent mobility and resilience delivering enormous advantages to individual businesses, they’re increasingly becoming essential to thriving economies. Indeed, the TRI calls workforce mobility “an economy within an economy: a hidden engine of bottom-up growth that rivals entire sectors in its economic contribution.”
According to Guild, workforce mobility alone generated an average of $221 billion in additional annual earnings between 2016 and 2024 — equivalent to 1 percent of U.S. GDP. That additional wealth creation peaked at $255 billion in 2023. Those gains also explain why countries like Singapore, India, Saudi Arabia, and others are investing billions into programs retraining and upskilling employees, and enabling them to answer the new needs their employers face amid rapid change.
But those investments in mobility abroad come at the very moment the TRI shows resilience in the U.S. slumping. Its recent reading of workforce mobility dropped to its lowest level since 2016, amid a shrinking national workforce, economic uncertainties, and increasing demand for AI skills by employers. Those forces have resulted in one out of three core jobs skills changing in the U.S. within the last three years — a mutation that rose as high as 75 percent in some professions.
Reversing U.S. mobility slump
How do U.S. companies reverse that slide? Shah thinks it will “likely come from a public-private model, where businesses lead the charge in building workforce mobility systems and government clears the roadblocks” for advancing those faster.
“That means aligning education incentives, expanding credential portability, and treating workforce development like critical infrastructure,” she says. “Companies cannot solve the skills gap alone, but government policy alone also will not keep pace with technology, it is the intersection of the two that unlocks lasting resilience.”
In drawing conclusions from the TRI’s results, Guild urges businesses to reformat their HR strategies to make mobility potentials a key focus in recruiting, along with continual upskilling of employees so they can step into new roles meeting emerging demands.
As part of that, Guild says key performance indicators, job definitions, and promotion decisions should focus on employee resilience as a key criterion. The same holds true for setting salaries, with Guild using AI literacy as an example of why that makes good business sense.
“Roles requiring AI skills command salaries 28 percent higher — an $18,000 premium on average,” the TRI says of current trends to recruit externally for those. “For employers, this creates a stark choice: pay unsustainable premiums for AI-ready talent that barely exists, or build it internally. The math favors building, but execution requires a resilience strategy.”
In short: The payoff of building resilience usually dwarfs the investment.
Take Guild customer OSF HealthCare, which made essential changes to the way it upskilled employees, and placed those at the heart of its HR strategy. The result was a 3-to-1 return on every dollar it invested; 60 percent less contract labor use in the first year alone; and an 89 percent retention rate, versus 54 percent in the wider healthcare sector.
Similarly, Salesforce launched its Career Connect bootcamp to help less qualified employees harness emerging AI and other generative tech, and use those to attain new skills in jobs the company needs to fill. The response was a 75 percent employee adoption rate, allowing Salesforce to fill 50 percent of its new positions internally.
That strategy, according to the TRI report also allowed Salesforce to retain workers and the talents they were initially hired for, while repositioning those into forward-facing jobs generating even greater value for the company. That’s precisely the resilience goal Guild urges all companies to aim for.
“When companies enable workers to move from underutilized roles into in-demand positions, productivity rises, wages grow, and business performance accelerates,” Shah said. “But today’s reality is that talent is constrained, access is uneven, and time is short. If we do not act intentionally to skill, reskill, and mobilize the workforce we already have, we will fall short on innovation, competitiveness, and shared prosperity.”
The good news, she adds, is that workers are ready, but need “a system built for the speed of today that invests in human adaptability, not just technological advancement.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It’s an almost daily occurrence: It’s 2:37 a.m., and while staring at your laptop, you’re wondering to yourself if your current coffee consumption has changed course and has gone from a habit to a full-blown personality trait. The investor call tomorrow looms heavily, and your inbox has become a minefield while your “to-do” list has begun to grow to the point it’s developing its own gravitational pull.
Have you guessed it yet? Yep, welcome to being an entrepreneur, where the highs are exhilarating but infrequent, and the lows are humbling and an almost daily occurrence, now to where the pressure is relentless.
Being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone. Building a business is hard, but it’s a privilege and an adventure with great rewards that requires a strong, sustainable mental fortitude to last the emotional marathons — because there’s no sprinting a marathon. Those founders who “make it” aren’t just labeled as talented or lucky; rather, they’re resilient. These founders have found the secret sauce; they’ve learned through the ups and downs that protecting their mental health, adapting under extreme pressures and keeping going is absurdly tough.
Entrepreneurship inherently comes with its own stress profile. Financial uncertainty is consistently identified as one of the most stressful burdens an entrepreneur deals with, especially early on. Couple that with the ongoing leadership isolation effect and the reality that your decisions could potentially make-or-break the company, piles on. Add in one more layer called “hustle culture,” and you’ve now somehow turned isolation and exhaustion into a competitive sport, complete with its own LinkedIn medals to showcase, “Sleeps Less Than You.”
Resilience in this aspect isn’t just a word; it’s the definition of not ignoring stress or toughing it out until you absolutely break. It’s feeling like Mike Tyson going 13 rounds, taking the punch, adapting and continuing to push forward without losing sight of the ultimate goal and bigger picture. The American Psychological Association continually correlates resilience to making better decisions, higher performance and more effective leadership — all of which are non-negotiables for an entrepreneur trying to stabilize and survive turbulence.
Building resilience through mental health practices
Here’s the good thing, though: Resilience is learned. It’s a skill that can be picked up and trained for in the same way some professional runners train for a big 10K — only the running mainly takes place mentally in your head (and occasionally between back-to-back meetings).
1. Mindset shifts:
Remember that setbacks as an entrepreneur aren’t career-ending; they’re really just expensive learning opportunities, sort of like paying tuition for a real-life MBA you didn’t realize you’ve signed up for. The challenges you take on and reframing them into data points versus failures can be all you need for a momentum builder that keeps the panic at bay.
2. Mind-body maintenance:
Remembering that your brain is an essential part of your body is crucial; treating it accordingly goes a long way. Be sure to build in exercise, even if just a simple walk, mindfulness and rhythmic breathing techniques can help regulate stress and improve cognitive ability. Numerous neuroscience studies showcase how regular mindfulness practice has the ability to reshape the brain, shaping it to handle curveballs more effectively, practice it, live it and turn it into a routine.
3. Support networks:
This should be as clear as day. Find the Alfred to your Batman. Having a person there you trust to help support your path. Whether it’s a mentor, peer group or personal coach, it can make the difference in putting things into perspective, solving problems faster and just reminding you that you’re not alone in the trenches.
4. Boundaries and recovery:
Thinking downtime is laziness is a waste of your energy; it’s preventive maintenance that you should embrace. Would you run your car engine 24/7, low on oil? Of course not, unless you like paying for repair bills. Your brain is no different. Ensuring you schedule whitespace, dedicated time to reflect on your current state, use it to create something non-business related or just zone out staring at a wall without guilt — it’s what you need it to be.
As an entrepreneur, the pressure is inevitable from various angles. The way you accept it, face it and come through with a response when it arrives doesn’t have to add to your stress, especially on a Monday right before a critical investor pitch. Those entrepreneurs who endure and thrive are not the ones who are tallying the most hours in the day; they’re the ones who have understood that mental health isn’t just “self-care” and have built systems to protect their mental health and solidify their resilience.
So take it by the horns, treat your mental health like your financials, monitoring them, investing in them and pivoting before a small problem becomes a major crisis. Because with this game, being resilient isn’t just about being able to survive the storm; it’s the ability to dance in the rain, and preferably with a cup of coffee that now isn’t doubling as your personality.
It’s an almost daily occurrence: It’s 2:37 a.m., and while staring at your laptop, you’re wondering to yourself if your current coffee consumption has changed course and has gone from a habit to a full-blown personality trait. The investor call tomorrow looms heavily, and your inbox has become a minefield while your “to-do” list has begun to grow to the point it’s developing its own gravitational pull.
Have you guessed it yet? Yep, welcome to being an entrepreneur, where the highs are exhilarating but infrequent, and the lows are humbling and an almost daily occurrence, now to where the pressure is relentless.
Being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone. Building a business is hard, but it’s a privilege and an adventure with great rewards that requires a strong, sustainable mental fortitude to last the emotional marathons — because there’s no sprinting a marathon. Those founders who “make it” aren’t just labeled as talented or lucky; rather, they’re resilient. These founders have found the secret sauce; they’ve learned through the ups and downs that protecting their mental health, adapting under extreme pressures and keeping going is absurdly tough.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is often something that many professionals do not pay close attention to. History has shown us that even industry giants can be humbled and collapse or lose significant income when they overlook critical vulnerabilities in their preparation for crises.
This can range from overconfidence in their abilities and technologies used to geopolitical unawareness. If the blind spots are not managed carefully, severe crises can be escalated, which can even threaten the future of the business.
This article will look at three catastrophic BCP failures that brought down industry titans. Every organization or company can learn lessons from these in order to ensure that they do not make the same mistakes.
Overconfidence in technology — How Facebook lost brand value
Many leading social networks were a few years ago always confident that their AI and automation would help them to solve crises without the need for human intervention. The overreliance can pose severe problems when complex problems arise.
In 2018, Facebook was dealt severe embarrassment for its overreliance on its automation after an automated network configuration tool misapplied changes, which caused the disruption of its services to millions. The incident exposed a critical flaw in that no manual override was in place to be able to correct the error quickly.
Facebook not only suffered reputational damage as users and advertisers lost trust in its reliability, but it also exposed its slow response as engineers struggled to diagnose the issue due to opaque system dependencies. There was also a lack of redundancy as no backup systems were activated in order to bypass the faulty automation.
The big lesson to be learned from Facebook’s error is that automation is still just a tool and not yet a replacement for human judgment. BCPs must always include fail-safes — i.e., manual overrides for critical systems, scenario testing, which means regular drills for technology failures, and transparency in order to ensure clear communication protocols during outages.
A failure to recognize geopolitical certainty led to Adobe usurping Kodak
It is important for major companies to always pay attention to geopolitical shifts and understand that a company has to regularly adapt depending on what happens in the world. Kodak was guilty of treating geopolitical shifts as distant risks, and this shortsightedness led to its downfall.
It was actually Kodak that invented the digital camera, but rather than further developing it, they opted to bury the technology in order to protect their film business. Upon noticing that humans were migrating to digital systems, Adobe migrated earlier than Kodak, embracing cloud-based tools and recurring revenue models. Kodak paid the price for reacting too late and had to file for bankruptcy in 2012.
Kodak paid the price as their leadership clung to legacy revenue streams, they didn’t have a BCP for disruptive tech adaptation and as they had ignored hard trends such as digital migration, which was inevitable.
Learning from the example of Kodak, it is always important for companies to monitor trends and especially identify hard trends such as demographics and technology evolution in order to predict disruptions. Flexible frameworks should be developed in order to allow rapid pivots, and there should be shareholder alignment to ensure that leadership and teams are prepared enough for transformational change.
The semiconductor shortage crisis was caused by underestimating supply chain vulnerabilities
Many BCPs opt to focus on internal risks, such as cyberattacks, and neglect external dependencies such as global supply chains. The 2020-2022 semiconductor shortage was an example of this, as it crippled industries from automotive to consumer electronics.
The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted most industries — global logistic networks and many companies that rely on “just in time” manufacturing, such as Toyota, faced massive production delays. Companies that did not have diversified suppliers and inventory buffers lost billions in income. Ford is estimated to have lost $2.5B due to chip shortages.
Because of single-point failures and the fact that there was an overreliance on a handful of suppliers, some were toppled. There was also a lack of contingency stock, and the lack of buffer inventory for critical components greatly impacted businesses, while slow adaptation delayed reshoring and supplier diversification.
The lesson from all of this is that for a BCP to be resilient, it must include supplier diversification, stress testing and inventory buffers. There should be partnerships with vendors across regions. Stress testing will stimulate supply chain disruptions in BCP drills, and inventory buffers help to maintain strategic reserves for critical materials.
In today’s day and age, the difference between survival and collapse will often lie in analyzing and recognizing blind spots before they become problems. All businesses should aim to learn from the above scenarios because, in business continuity, complacency is the greatest risk of all, as it can lead to a business’s downfall.
With the world and technology now constantly evolving, a company must embrace change and continuously work on finding ways to be relevant for the far future.
A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is often something that many professionals do not pay close attention to. History has shown us that even industry giants can be humbled and collapse or lose significant income when they overlook critical vulnerabilities in their preparation for crises.
This can range from overconfidence in their abilities and technologies used to geopolitical unawareness. If the blind spots are not managed carefully, severe crises can be escalated, which can even threaten the future of the business.
This article will look at three catastrophic BCP failures that brought down industry titans. Every organization or company can learn lessons from these in order to ensure that they do not make the same mistakes.
Balances personal story with leadership and coaching insights
Book addresses healthcare inequality in cancer care access
In his new book, “Every Mile Matters,” local leader Jeffrey Reynolds shares how his experience as an Ironman athlete became a powerful tool in his fight against cancer – not once, but twice. Reynolds, president and CEO of Family and Children’s Association, said he approached cancer treatment with the same discipline and determination he brought to endurance training, transforming adversity into resilience.
At 55, Reynolds joined an elite group of athletes in 2021 completing a 140.6-mile Ironman triathlon in Florida. But the victory was short-lived. A routine PSA test led to a prostate cancer diagnosis, followed by a more severe blow: Stage 3B colorectal cancer. Reynolds found himself applying the same grit and strategy he used in endurance sports to navigate a high-stakes medical battle.
“I went from being at the peak of physical fitness to facing my own mortality,” Reynolds said in a news release about the book. “But I quickly realized that triathlon had been preparing me for this race I never signed up for.”
Reynolds said he found the discipline to push through “the wall” at mile 20 of a marathon, and the ability to stay calm in chaotic open water – all of which equipped him with the tools to face cancer head on.
With that approach, Reynolds said he persevered through months of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, while continuing to lead one of Long Island’s oldest and largest nonprofit organizations and also coaching others who had been newly diagnosed.
In the book, Reynolds offers practical wisdom for anyone facing life’s biggest challenges. He also shares “training tips” for building holistic resilience – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – that transcend the athletic arena into everyday leadership.
The book also delivers a sobering critique of America’s healthcare system. Reynolds contrasts his access to top-tier care with the stark disparities that influence cancer outcomes – where race, education, income and geography can play a role.
“‘Every Mile Matters’ is a triumph of heart and soul in battling the demons of cancer,” Mike Reilly, an ambassador caption for the Ironman Foundation, said in the news release.
“Jeffrey Reynolds has captured each defining moment of his cancer journey with honesty, passion, and remarkable clarity,” Reilly added. Through his story, he teaches us powerful life lessons – and more importantly, how to live them daily.”
The book is available on Amazon and through its dedicated website of the same title.
What if the very hormone designed to help you survive is actually the reason you’re struggling to thrive?
My mother relentlessly saved and sacrificed so that she could enjoy her life in retirement. But two years into retirement, she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s.
Here’s what I’ve learned since becoming a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner: she didn’t just “get” Alzheimer’s two years after retirement. It was building and building for years before that. She was making it worse with lifestyle choices: the over-exercising that women in their 40s and 50s often do, eating trans fats during the low-fat craze of the 80s and 90s.
Had I known what I know now, her outcome might have been different.
This is why I’m passionate about functional health. This is why thousands of practitioners are learning to identify and address the root causes of dysfunction before they become disease. If we can reach people in that gray space (when things are out of balance but before they become diagnosable conditions), we can change their trajectory. We can save lives.
As functional health practitioners, we see it every day: clients who’ve tried everything, followed every protocol, cleaned up their diet, and taken all the right supplements, yet they’re still stuck in that frustrating place of “I’m okay, but I’m not great.”
The missing piece? Understanding cortisol and its profound impact on every system in the body.
If you’ve ever wondered why some clients get amazing results while others plateau, or why you yourself might be experiencing symptoms that doctors dismiss as “normal aging,” this deep dive into cortisol will change everything.
What Is Wellness, Really?
Before we dive into cortisol, let’s get clear on what we’re actually working toward. At FDN, we don’t believe in “fine” or “okay.” We believe in abundant vitality.
Picture this as a spectrum:
The Right Side (The Medical Model): Symptoms → Sickness → Disease → Death
The Middle (Neutral Health): No symptoms, but no energy either. This is the “I’m fine, I guess” zone where most people live.
The Left Side (True Wellness): High energy, optimal function, metabolic fire, abundant vitality, joy for life.
Here’s the thing: neutral health equals a neutral life. When you’re operating from “I’m okay, I don’t have any complaints,” you’re not building empires, writing books, raising joyful kids, or showing up as your best self in relationships.
Good health, abundant vitality, is your birthright. It’s not just for the lucky few.
The Body’s Incredible Healing Power (And What’s Limiting It)
Your body is a self-healing machine. You know this because when you get a cut, it heals. When you break a bone, it mends. When you catch a cold, you recover.
But this healing ability isn’t infinite. If it were, we’d never age or die.
So what’s the difference between what your body can heal and what it can’t?
It’s a savings versus spending problem.
Think of your body as having a bank account called “Vital Reserve.” This is your innate intelligence: your body’s natural ability to function at 100% and fix imbalances before they become problems.
Where do you spend this precious currency? On your environment.
This has always been the case. Our paleolithic ancestors spent their Vital Reserve on not knowing if food would be available, dealing with harsh weather, avoiding predators, and navigating tribal conflicts.
Today? We spend it on mental-emotional stress, environmental toxins, and poor lifestyle habits that are constantly draining our account.
The main spender of Vital Reserve is stress.
The Modern Stress Problem: It’s Not What You Think
When most people think of stress, they picture this: work deadlines, traffic, relationship conflicts, financial pressure. And yes, these mental-emotional stressors are huge.
But there are two other categories most people completely miss:
Physical Stressors:
Sitting too long
Blue light exposure from screens
Too much coffee
Not exercising enough (or exercising too much)
Needing wine to fall asleep
Poor sleep quality
Environmental Stressors:
Depleted soils
EMF exposure
Chemicals in food, water, and air
Toxins our paleolithic ancestors never encountered
Plus, there’s the existential stress of modern life: What’s my purpose? How do I make my life meaningful when I’ll likely be forgotten in 100 years?
All of these are constantly withdrawing from your Vital Reserve account.
Meet Cortisol: Your Body’s “Energy on Credit” System
Cortisol is your primary stress hormone, and it’s actually designed to help you survive. When your environment throws stressors at you, cortisol says, “We need to put internal spending on hold and take all available resources to deal with this external threat.”
Cortisol breaks the body down for quick energy. We call this “catabolic.”
Why would your body have a mechanism for breaking itself down? Because sometimes you need energy RIGHT NOW. When your boss says, “This project is actually due in 30 minutes,” you can’t drive to the store, buy food, cook it, eat it, digest it, and then produce energy. You need quick fuel immediately.
So cortisol reaches for easy-to-break-down tissues like cartilage, tendons, connective tissue, and muscle, converting them to blood sugar.
Here’s the kicker: Cortisol is also a natural painkiller and anti-inflammatory. It masks the damage it’s doing, which is why it makes you feel amazing in the moment: clear thinking, quick reactions, pain-free movement.
Think of cortisol as your body’s credit card. You’re borrowing energy now and promising to pay it back later through rest, recovery, and healing.
When “Energy on Credit” Becomes a Problem
Throughout history, humans dealt with stress that was intense but occasional and short-lived. A wild animal attack, a natural disaster, a tribal conflict: these were serious but temporary.
Take a moment to think about this: Does this describe the stress in your life?
For most of us, stress is intense, constant, and never-ending. We wake up stressed, work stressed, drive home stressed, and lie in bed stressed about tomorrow’s stress.
This creates what we call “catabolic debt”: you’re constantly running up charges on your cortisol credit card without ever paying it back.
Chronic stress is not within our biological design.
Consider this: Anthropological studies show paleolithic humans worked only 15-20 hours per week. How many of you work only 15-20 hours per week? (And remember, “work” includes housework, childcare, and all the other responsibilities that don’t stop when you leave the office.)
They lived in close communities with cooperative resource sharing and had each other’s backs. Think about your own life: Do you know your neighbors? If you do, would they really have your back if things got serious?
Most of us are duplicating resources instead of sharing them. We’re all figuring out our own childcare, making our own meals, maintaining our own everything. There’s no interdependence, no shared load.
The cost of modern life is enormous:
70-80% of doctor visits are for stress-related illnesses
People with high anxiety are 4-5 times more likely to die from heart attack or stroke
Stress contributes to 50% of all illnesses
The Stress Response Curve: Your Roadmap to Understanding Where You Are
This is where it gets really interesting. Understanding this curve will change how you see your health (and your clients’ health) forever.
We all start in the green zone: Homeostasis. When you experience occasional stressors, cortisol and adrenaline spike, you handle the situation, then return to baseline to rest and repair.
But when stress becomes chronic, you move into the orange zone: Acute Stress. You’re constantly producing cortisol and adrenaline, never returning to homeostasis.
Here’s the thing: on your way up this curve, you feel AMAZING. Remember when you could pull all-nighters and still ace exams? When you could eat junk food without consequences? When you had laser focus for 12-16 hours straight?
That’s the acute phase. You’re running on cortisol, and it feels like superpowers.
Then you hit Peak Production. Your body says, “We’ve put way too much on the cortisol credit card. We have to cut back.”
Now you fall into the Compensatory Phase. Your cortisol numbers might look normal to a doctor, but the distribution is all wrong. Maybe you have too much in the morning and crash by afternoon, or you spike at night and can’t sleep.
Plus, you have a relativity problem. You’re used to feeling like Superman from the acute phase, so normal cortisol levels feel terrible by comparison.
Continue down this path, and you reach the Exhaustive Phase. Like a phone on low battery mode, everything still works but at 30% capacity and not for long. You’re devoting everything to just getting through the day.
The Hidden Cost: What Happens to Your Body’s Core Systems
At FDN, we focus on six foundational systems that chronic stress systematically shuts down. We call them the H-I-D-D-E-N systems, and understanding what happens to each one under chronic stress is crucial for practitioners:
H – Hormones DHEA is your anabolic hormone: the one responsible for building you back up after cortisol breaks you down. This is how you pay off your cortisol credit card. But when stress is constant, DHEA steps back and says, “I’ll come back when it’s safe to focus internally, but right now we need to keep spending on the environment.” DHEA becomes chronically low, which means your healing potential becomes chronically low.
Then sex hormones get the message: “We don’t have enough resources to fund fertility right now.” Sex hormones plummet, taking motivation and joy for life with them. This is when you get to that neutral state where you’re thinking, “I have dreams I want to pursue, but it’s just too much effort. I’ll just watch Netflix instead.”
I – Immune Your immune system is expensive to run. Under chronic stress, it says, “I cost a ton of money, so I’m going to operate at 30% capacity and not for very long.” Now you’re getting sick often, it takes forever to heal, you can’t shake that cough, and if anyone around you is sick, you know you’re going down.
D – Digestion Digestion costs a lot of energy to function properly. When you’re spending everything on stress, digestion goes into low-power mode. Now you’re only digesting at 30% capacity. Even if you’re eating the cleanest diet in the world, you can’t use it. You’re not getting the building blocks to repair or the nutrients your body needs to power metabolic functions at full capacity.
D – Detoxification Detoxification is another huge system that’s expensive to run. When your body’s bank account is overdrawn from cortisol debt, detox says, “I don’t have enough money to find these toxins, bind them up, and effectively remove them. So I’ll put them in storage instead.” Your body shoves toxins into fat cells, brain tissue, and bones, creating a toxic backlog that makes you feel slow, gives you acne, throws off digestion, and impairs hormone production.
E – Energy Production Your mitochondria can’t function optimally when all resources are diverted to stress response. This leads to that “tired but wired” feeling where you’re exhausted but can’t actually rest.
N – Nervous System Sleep, mood, and cognitive function all suffer. This is where we see the brain fog, insomnia, anxiety, and depression that so many people struggle with.
The fundamental principle of FDN: These systems don’t operate in isolation. You can’t just say, “Oh, you have classic hormone symptoms, so let’s run a hormone test.” You miss immunity, digestion, detoxification: all the other systems contributing to what we call “Metabolic Chaos.”
This is why the “take this supplement for that symptom” approach rarely works long-term. You’re not dealing with isolated problems: you’re dealing with systemic dysfunction where multiple systems are compromised simultaneously.
Real-Life Case Studies: The Stress Curve in Action
Let’s look at three real clients to see how this plays out. As FDN practitioners, we use what we call “clinical correlation,” which means we never look at lab numbers in isolation. We always consider how someone feels alongside their test results.
Case Study 1: Adam – The Acute Phase Crash
Profile: 35-year-old male, broker at a mid-size investment firm, former athlete still crushing CrossFit workouts
Symptoms: Weight gain, trouble concentrating, loss of muscle mass despite rigorous workouts, headaches
Doctor’s Assessment: “Your results are unremarkable. This is normal aging.”
Lab Results:
Cortisol sum: 9 (acute phase)
Four-point pattern: Way too high in morning, drops low at noon, crashes severely in afternoon, bounces back up at night
The Reality: How do we know Adam isn’t on the left side of the stress curve going up into acute phase? His symptoms tell us everything. If he were on the way up, he’d feel amazing and wouldn’t be in our office. Instead, he’s on the right side coming down from peak production.
His cortisol pattern explains everything: sky-high morning cortisol makes him feel wired and anxious, the afternoon crash leaves him unable to concentrate (not ideal for an investment broker), and the nighttime spike disrupts his sleep.
Even though his DHEA looks “normal,” when we compare it to his cortisol level of 9, he’s clearly catabolic dominant. He’s breaking down faster than he’s building up, which explains why his intense CrossFit sessions aren’t building muscle: they’re just adding more stress to an already overloaded system.
The Reality: Caitlyn’s cortisol sum looks normal, but the distribution is completely dysfunctional. She can barely drag herself out of bed in the morning, crashes hard in the afternoon (imagine trying to accurately record legal proceedings when your cortisol is plummeting), and lies awake at night because her cortisol spikes just when it should be lowest.
She also has a relativity problem. When she was in the acute phase, she felt like Superman. Now that she’s in compensatory with “normal” cortisol levels, she feels terrible by comparison. Her DHEA is low, confirming she’s still in catabolic debt despite the lower cortisol numbers.
Case Study 3: Maggie – The Exhaustive Phase Crisis
Profile: 43-year-old chef at a popular five-star restaurant, diagnosed with hypothyroid
Symptoms: Weight gain in hips and belly, trouble keeping up at work, depression, irregular menstrual cycle
Lifestyle: Working 60+ hours per week, consistently sleeping only 5 hours per night
Medical Status: Seeing a counselor, considering antidepressant medication
Lab Results:
Cortisol sum: 3.1 (exhaustive phase)
Four-point pattern: Way too low in morning, drops low at noon, slight bounce in afternoon, drops again at night
DHEA: Very low
Clinical correlation: Still catabolic dominant despite low cortisol
The Reality: Maggie’s body is operating like a phone on low battery mode: everything still works, but at 30% capacity and not for long. Her thyroid has downregulated because there’s literally not enough energy in the system to maintain normal function.
The depression isn’t just psychological: it’s physiological. Her body can’t afford to fund optimal brain function. Even though her cortisol is very low and her DHEA is very low, she’s still cortisol dominant and in catabolic debt.
This is why understanding the stress curve is so crucial. Three people, three different phases, three different approaches needed.
The Path Forward: Why Understanding Cortisol Changes Everything
Here’s why this matters for you as a health practitioner:
1. It explains why some clients plateau. If you’re not addressing the stress component, you’ll hit a ceiling on healing no matter how perfect the diet or supplement protocol.
2. It validates your clients’ experiences. When someone says, “I used to be able to handle so much more,” or “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” you now understand the physiology behind it.
3. It gives you a roadmap for intervention. Different phases require different approaches. Someone in the acute phase needs different support than someone in the exhaustive phase.
4. It highlights the importance of comprehensive testing. A single cortisol measurement tells you almost nothing. You need the full pattern plus clinical correlation.
The FDN Approach: Test, Don’t Guess
At FDN, we don’t just talk about stress: we measure it. We use what we call “clinical correlation,” which means we never look at lab numbers in isolation. We always consider how someone feels alongside their test results.
We look at:
Four-point cortisol patterns throughout the day (not just a single measurement)
DHEA levels and the cortisol-to-DHEA ratio
How stress is affecting all the H-I-D-D-E-N systems
The complete picture of metabolic chaos
Progress tracking with tools like the Metabolic Chaos Scorecard
Then we address it systematically through our DRESS protocol:
D – Diet: Personalized nutrition based on lab findings, not generic “healthy eating” advice
R – Rest: Sleep optimization and recovery strategies tailored to your stress phase
E – Exercise: Right-sized movement for your current capacity (over-exercise is just as harmful as under-exercise)
S – Stress Reduction: Targeted techniques for your specific stressors: mental/emotional, physical, environmental, and lifestyle factors
S – Supplementation: Targeted support based on actual lab results, not guesswork
This isn’t about generic protocols. It’s about understanding exactly where someone is on the stress curve and what their body needs to heal.
Key Takeaways for Health Practitioners
Cortisol isn’t the enemy. A lot of people talk about cortisol as if it’s the villain—commercials make it sound like cortisol just makes you “old and fat.” That’s not what cortisol does. Cortisol is a vital hormone for navigating stress. The problem is chronic stress disrupting its natural rhythm.
Understanding the stress curve is diagnostic gold. It explains why clients feel the way they do and gives you a framework for intervention. Different phases require different approaches.
Clinical correlation is everything. You can’t just look at lab numbers in isolation. A cortisol sum of 5 might be “normal” to a doctor, but if your client feels terrible and the distribution is dysregulated, that tells you the real story.
You can’t ignore stress and expect lasting results. No matter how perfect your diet protocol or how targeted your supplements, chronic stress will cap healing potential. There’s a ceiling you’ll never break through if you don’t address the stress component.
The body’s systems are interconnected. You can’t just “fix hormones” without addressing how stress is affecting immunity, digestion, detoxification, and all the other H-I-D-D-E-N systems. This is why comprehensive testing and systematic protocols are crucial.
Metabolic Chaos requires a systematic approach. When multiple systems are compromised simultaneously, you need a framework like DRESS that addresses all aspects of healing, not just isolated symptoms.
Your Next Steps
If you’re ready to master functional lab testing and learn how to identify and address cortisol dysregulation in your practice, FDN provides the training, community, and ongoing support you need.
Because here’s the truth: your clients deserve more than “fine.” They deserve abundant vitality. And you deserve the confidence that comes from knowing exactly how to help them achieve it.
When you understand cortisol (really understand it), you hold the key to unlocking transformation for every client who walks through your door.
Ready to become the practitioner who always knows what to do next?
The answer lies in data-driven functional health. The answer lies in understanding that robust health isn’t just about the absence of symptoms: it’s about the presence of vitality.
And it starts with the hormone you can’t ignore: cortisol.
Want to learn more about becoming a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner?
Discover how our comprehensive training program gives you the tools to master cortisol testing, interpretation, and protocols that get results. Because when you know how to test, you never have to guess. View an indepth case study here.
Do you have trouble transforming talk → action? Learn about Personal Growth Initiative (PGI) and the essential components behind a lifelong mindset of self-improvement.
Personal growth doesn’t just happen — it requires intention, planning, and action. While many of us may talk a lot about the things we want to change in our lives, transforming that talk into action can be a real challenge.
Psychologists have identified Personal Growth Initiative as a mindset that bridges this all-too-common gap between “talk” and “action,” helping individuals actively and consciously pursue their development in a clear and deliberate way.
As a reader of this article, you likely already check off some boxes for Personal Growth Initiative. The average person doesn’t consciously seek out knowledge about psychology and self-improvement, so you’re in a unique and special group of people. By virtue of being here right now, you are demonstrating a rare initiative.
Now let’s dive more into what PGI is all about.
Personal Growth Initiative: The 4 Core Components
Personal Growth Initiative (PGI) is a set of beliefs and attitudes that help individuals intentionally engage in their own growth process. It consists of four main components.
Readiness for Change
The first step is to be ready to make a change. A person can have all the help, guidance, and resources in the world at their disposal, but it all amounts to nothing if they aren’t ready to make that final leap. The basic truth is we often need that proverbial “fire under our butts” before we take conscious action. Once you’re ready, the next step is to translate that readiness into a clear plan of action.
Thought Patterns:
“I am aware of when I need to make a change.”
“I take every opportunity to grow as it comes up.”
“I am willing to step out of my comfort zone to achieve growth.”
“I take an active role in my self-improvement.”
“I don’t sit and wait for change to happen.”
Example: Imagine facing burnout at work. Instead of feeling trapped, a person with a high readiness for change may recognize this as a signal to re-evaluate their work habits or career path, making room for new habits and healthier routines (such as sleep, diet, exercise, or leisure time).
The second step is to create realistic plans for your growth. An idea remains just that until you put it on paper and hold yourself accountable. Having a clear vision of your future and where you want to go, then setting small and realistic goals that are within your reach, can help propel you forward in a natural and sustainable way.
Thought Patterns:
“I set realistic goals for what I want to change about myself.”
“I have a specific action plan to help me reach my goals.”
“I break down larger goals into smaller, manageable tasks.”
“I regularly review my progress and adjust my plan accordingly.”
“I stay committed to my plan even when faced with setbacks.”
Example: Let’s say you want to improve your physical health or lose weight. Instead of jumping into an unsustainable workout routine, a planful person might research the best exercise programs, consult with a trainer, and create a structured plan that best fits their lifestyle, personality, and fitness goals.
Another essential feature of the Personal Growth Initiative is actively seeking help and guidance from outside resources, including learning materials like articles and books, as well as reaching out to friends, mentors, or counselors. This is one of the most common ways people handicap themselves because they wrongly believe “I have to do everything on my own,” when the truth is there are plenty of resources available to take advantage of (including this website).
Thought Patterns:
“I ask for help from others when I need it.”
“I do my own research to learn more about new topics.”
“I like reading articles and books to learn new things.”
“I’m not afraid to reach out to a therapist or coach if I really need one.”
“I connect with communities or groups that align with my values and goals.”
Example: During a stressful life transition, like a divorce or job loss, someone with strong PGI would actively seek out the right books and resources, such as counseling or career coaching, to navigate the situation more smoothly and effectively.
Intentional Behavior refers to the daily or weekly actions you take that are purposefully directed toward achieving your goals. Unlike Readiness for Change, which is about being mentally prepared and open to growth, Intentional Behavior is about translating that readiness into consistent, goal-directed actions. It’s the final step between “talk” and “action.” For example, Readiness for Change might mean deciding that improving your health is necessary, while Intentional Behavior is actually getting up every morning to go for a jog or preparing a healthy meal.
Thought Patterns:
“I turn my intentions into actions.”
“I take small steps forward every day.”
“I build new habits into my daily routine that bring me closer to my goals.”
“I know what steps I can take to make intentional changes in myself.”
Example: After recognizing the need for change and making a plan, intentional behavior would involve committing to daily or weekly actions—whether it’s setting aside time for self-care or networking to explore new career opportunities. Each small step compounds over time, leading to greater progress and resilience.
Each of these components supports and strengthens the next, creating a clear pathway from “ideas” to “actions.”
“Readiness for Change” sets the foundation by keeping you open to new paths and patterns in life, ensuring that you are mentally prepared for growth and change when needed. From there, “Making a Plan” gives direction and a direct course for action, “Using Resources” provides support, knowledge, and inspirational boosts, and “Intentional Behavior” turns plans into consistent daily and weekly action. Together, they create a feedback loop that encourages continuous growth and resilience.
For example, someone with high Readiness for Change will see a major setback, like losing a job, as an opportunity to learn new skills or change their career path. They use Planfulness to plot a course of action they can follow, like going back to school or learning a new trade, seek new resources like career counseling, job fairs, or apprenticeships, and take consistent daily action, such as taking classes, practicing new skills, or sending out resumes – all of which help them not only cope with this major life change, but also thrive and ultimately find a better path forward in the long run.
One study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that PGI is positively related to adaptive coping styles and self-efficacy, suggesting that those who actively engage in personal growth are better equipped to handle negative and stressful events more effectively, because they approach life’s obstacles with the mindset of growth and learning rather than resignation and defeat.
If you aren’t ready to make a change – or you are completely resistant to change – it’s unlikely to happen. This includes therapy and coaching, where studies show that “motivational readiness” can be a contributing factor to how effective a therapeutic intervention is. This aligns with common factors theory, where one of the most important features of successful therapy and counseling is “shared goals” among therapist and client – you have to be on the same page about where you are and where you want to go.
Overall, PGI fosters a mindset that not only supports mental health and well-being but also builds long-term grit and resilience. By approaching challenges with intentional growth, individuals are more prepared to navigate life’s obstacles, setbacks, and inevitable ups and downs.
Embrace the Will to Improve
The best way to prove your commitment to something is through your actions.
Ask yourself, “What is the smallest step I can take today to start moving in the right direction?” Maybe it’s joining a gym, starting a new hobby, setting a 10-minute daily reading habit, or subscribing to our newsletter for more actionable tips and advice on self-improvement.
Personal Growth Initiative is about more than just wanting to improve — it’s about intentionally working toward becoming a better version of yourself. Start today by taking one small step, however small it may be.
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This year’s official White House Christmas tree comes from western North Carolina, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Helene in late September.White House staff traveled to Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm in Newland, Avery County, on Monday to select the 20-foot-tall Fraser fir that will decorate the Blue Room.It’s the second time in a row a tree from North Carolina has been selected for the White House, and the first from Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm. The farm’s owner, Sam Cartner, said this is an achievement for all the tree farms in western North Carolina.”When it goes to the White House, it’s not about the politics; it’s about the people of this community,” he said.Avery County was one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Helene, considered to be among the deadliest hurricanes to strike the U.S. mainland in the last 50 years, CNN previously reported. At least 231 people were killed across six states.Cartner hopes their tree will be a symbol of resilience and resourcefulness for the people who demonstrated an “unbelievable sense of community, of generosity and giving” during Hurricane Helene.The farm lost between 5,000 and 6,000 Christmas trees from landslides, most of which were four feet tall or less and would have been market-ready in four years, Cartner said.Most of the farm’s roads and infrastructures damaged by the hurricane have been repaired and Cartner expects to have a “relatively normal harvest.””We are lucky that our farm is not in a river valley or close to a major river,” he said.Other farms in Avery County lost 8-foot-tall trees ready to be sold this holiday season, Cartner said. And some growers are still unable to access their farms, due to fallen trees and unstable roads.The North Carolina Department of Transportation says it is working closely with tree growers in the area to restore several connector roads and secondary routes still damaged from major slides and fallen trees.At this time, it is unclear when access to all the farms will be restored, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation.The impact of Hurricane Helene on the Christmas tree industry was minimalAs North Carolina tree growers approach the start of the Christmas tree “cutting season,” which begins in two weeks, most believe they will be open for business, according to Jennifer Greene, executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association.”I think that it is awesome, it symbolizes hope, and it shows the perseverance and the strength of the communities and of our Christmas tree farms,” Greene said.North Carolina is the second-largest Christmas tree-producing state in the nation, and it harvests over 3 million Christmas trees annually, according to Greene.It is unclear how many Fraser firs were damaged in the hurricane.”There were some losses from larger trees due to landslides and mudslides but it’s minimal in comparison to our industry, in comparison to how many trees we have and how many we grow,” Greene said.Authorities believe they will have a better estimate of how many trees were lost to the hurricane after the Christmas season.”We do not expect the aftermath of Hurricane Helene to have a significant effect on the supply of real North Carolina Fraser fir Christmas trees this holiday season,” said Tim O’Connor, executive director of the association.”It will take some time to fully assess the extent and implications of damage to Christmas tree farms affected by the hurricane, but our farmers have weathered the storm and are ready to persevere,” he added.A ‘beauty contest’ for Christmas treesThe White House Christmas tree is selected at a contest hosted by the National Christmas Tree Association, the national trade association and advocacy organization for the farm-grown Christmas tree industry.”Every tree selected for the White House is the best tree among those that fit the criteria for height and width,” said O’Connor.The tree must be between 18-20 feet tall, and approximately 12 feet wide.The North Carolina Fraser fir is the most popular Christmas tree, and the state produces about 20% of all real Christmas trees, according to the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association.It’s the 16th time a North Carolina Fraser Fir has been selected for the White House, more than any other state in the nation, according to Greene.Growers spend years caring for and selecting their trees for the contest.”It is a subjective decision, essentially a beauty contest, reached by comparing the trees,” O’Connor said.To compete in the contest, tree growers first need to win their state or regional Christmas Tree Association contest.”Growers bring their tree entry to the national contest site from all over the country to be displayed for judging,” said O’Connor.Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm was named the 2024 Grand Champion Grower.”With this award goes the honor of presenting a Christmas tree to the White House,” O’Connor said.The farm will cut, wrap and ship the Fraser Fir on November 20 at an event to raise money for hurricane survivors, Cartner said.It will arrive at the White House North Portico via jingle bell-bedecked horse and carriage and it will be inspected by the first lady – a tradition since 1966 – which usually marks the kickoff of the White House’s annual holiday festivities.The tree will be placed in the center of the White House Blue Room and decorated with a theme that will be unveiled after the Thanksgiving holiday.The tree will be presented at a formal ceremony at the White House on November 25.
This year’s official White House Christmas tree comes from western North Carolina, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Helene in late September.
White House staff traveled to Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm in Newland, Avery County, on Monday to select the 20-foot-tall Fraser fir that will decorate the Blue Room.
It’s the second time in a row a tree from North Carolina has been selected for the White House, and the first from Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm. The farm’s owner, Sam Cartner, said this is an achievement for all the tree farms in western North Carolina.
“When it goes to the White House, it’s not about the politics; it’s about the people of this community,” he said.
Avery County was one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Helene, considered to be among the deadliest hurricanes to strike the U.S. mainland in the last 50 years, CNN previously reported. At least 231 people were killed across six states.
Cartner hopes their tree will be a symbol of resilience and resourcefulness for the people who demonstrated an “unbelievable sense of community, of generosity and giving” during Hurricane Helene.
Courtesy Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm via CNN Newsource
David and Sam Cartner at the tree farm in 2013.
The farm lost between 5,000 and 6,000 Christmas trees from landslides, most of which were four feet tall or less and would have been market-ready in four years, Cartner said.
Most of the farm’s roads and infrastructures damaged by the hurricane have been repaired and Cartner expects to have a “relatively normal harvest.”
“We are lucky that our farm is not in a river valley or close to a major river,” he said.
Other farms in Avery County lost 8-foot-tall trees ready to be sold this holiday season, Cartner said. And some growers are still unable to access their farms, due to fallen trees and unstable roads.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation says it is working closely with tree growers in the area to restore several connector roads and secondary routes still damaged from major slides and fallen trees.
At this time, it is unclear when access to all the farms will be restored, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation.
The impact of Hurricane Helene on the Christmas tree industry was minimal
As North Carolina tree growers approach the start of the Christmas tree “cutting season,” which begins in two weeks, most believe they will be open for business, according to Jennifer Greene, executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association.
“I think that it is awesome, it symbolizes hope, and it shows the perseverance and the strength of the communities and of our Christmas tree farms,” Greene said.
North Carolina is the second-largest Christmas tree-producing state in the nation, and it harvests over 3 million Christmas trees annually, according to Greene.
It is unclear how many Fraser firs were damaged in the hurricane.
“There were some losses from larger trees due to landslides and mudslides but it’s minimal in comparison to our industry, in comparison to how many trees we have and how many we grow,” Greene said.
Authorities believe they will have a better estimate of how many trees were lost to the hurricane after the Christmas season.
“We do not expect the aftermath of Hurricane Helene to have a significant effect on the supply of real North Carolina Fraser fir Christmas trees this holiday season,” said Tim O’Connor, executive director of the association.
“It will take some time to fully assess the extent and implications of damage to Christmas tree farms affected by the hurricane, but our farmers have weathered the storm and are ready to persevere,” he added.
A ‘beauty contest’ for Christmas trees
The White House Christmas tree is selected at a contest hosted by the National Christmas Tree Association, the national trade association and advocacy organization for the farm-grown Christmas tree industry.
“Every tree selected for the White House is the best tree among those that fit the criteria for height and width,” said O’Connor.
The tree must be between 18-20 feet tall, and approximately 12 feet wide.
The North Carolina Fraser fir is the most popular Christmas tree, and the state produces about 20% of all real Christmas trees, according to the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association.
It’s the 16th time a North Carolina Fraser Fir has been selected for the White House, more than any other state in the nation, according to Greene.
Growers spend years caring for and selecting their trees for the contest.
“It is a subjective decision, essentially a beauty contest, reached by comparing the trees,” O’Connor said.
To compete in the contest, tree growers first need to win their state or regional Christmas Tree Association contest.
“Growers bring their tree entry to the national contest site from all over the country to be displayed for judging,” said O’Connor.
Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm was named the 2024 Grand Champion Grower.
“With this award goes the honor of presenting a Christmas tree to the White House,” O’Connor said.
The farm will cut, wrap and ship the Fraser Fir on November 20 at an event to raise money for hurricane survivors, Cartner said.
It will arrive at the White House North Portico via jingle bell-bedecked horse and carriage and it will be inspected by the first lady – a tradition since 1966 – which usually marks the kickoff of the White House’s annual holiday festivities.
The tree will be placed in the center of the White House Blue Room and decorated with a theme that will be unveiled after the Thanksgiving holiday.
The tree will be presented at a formal ceremony at the White House on November 25.
New Freely Available Guide for Youth Encourages Students to Discover, Understand and Act on Ecosystem Resilience Topics
WASHINGTON, August 27, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– All people live within and are reliant on ecosystems, and our actions are increasingly threatening these vital systems. Right now, 75% of agricultural crops are at least partially dependent on pollinators, but because of people, the populations of many pollinator insects are in decline. Over half the world’s GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature. Our food, shelter, oxygen, and even the climate we live in are all at risk due to the growing stress we place on these ecosystems.
The Smithsonian Science Education Center, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), has developed Ecosystem Resilience! How can people and ecosystems build resilience to change?The new community research guide for youth ages 11–18 is underpinned by the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and highlights strategies for local adaptation to global impacts of ecosystem resilience around topics like pollution, deforestation, and climate change.
As part of the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, Ecosystem Resilience! is the thirteenth freely available guide. Ecosystem Resilience! encourages youth to explore resilience concepts such as biodiversity, connectivity, ecosystem-based adaptation, and biomimicry, applying them both to specific ecosystems and to human communities. As students take on the role of action researchers, they gather data about their communities and evaluate potential nature-based solutions for their own resilience and the resilience of the ecosystem around them.
“We have seen firsthand that students and teachers want more sustainable development topics like ecosystem resilience in their classrooms. In this guide we encourage students to discover and understand resilience concepts around grasslands, forests, shorelines, and deserts, and act locally to contribute to a more resilient future for these ecosystems,” said Carol O’Donnell, the Douglas M. Lapp and Anne B. Keiser Director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center. “We want to help students to reimagine the relationship between people and ecosystems to allow both to thrive.”
The Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) is transforming K–12 Education Through Science in collaboration with communities across the globe. The SSEC is nationally and internationally recognized for the quality of its programs and its impact on K–12 science education. Visit the SSEC website to learn more about the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project and follow SSEC on X and Facebook.
This topic comes up a lot in my therapy practice where hope can be used to generate an often needed flame from an ember; for individuals seeking personal growth or in a relationship where two people are looking for signs of life and encouragement to move forward together.
In the tapestry of human emotions, hope shines as a beacon of light, illuminating the path towards emotional health. More than just a fleeting feeling, hope allows us to navigate life’s challenges with resilience and optimism.
Hope is the belief in one’s ability to achieve desired goals and the pathways to reach them. It encompasses a sense of agency, the conviction that we can influence our circumstances, and a belief that success is possible.
Research has demonstrated that individuals with higher levels of hope experience:
Reduced Stress and Anxiety: Hopeful individuals tend to perceive challenges as opportunities for growth rather than insurmountable obstacles. This mindset fosters a sense of control and reduces feelings of stress and anxiety.
Increased Resilience: Hope acts as a buffer against adversity, enabling individuals to bounce back from setbacks and persevere through difficult times. The belief in a brighter future fuels the motivation to overcome challenges.
Improved Mood and Well-being: Hope is closely linked to positive emotions such as joy, optimism, and contentment. It provides a sense of purpose and meaning, even in the face of adversity.
Enhanced Physical Health: The positive effects of hope extend beyond emotional well-being. Studies have shown that hopeful individuals tend to have better physical health outcomes, including lower blood pressure, improved immune function, and faster recovery from illness.
Unlike optimism, which is simply the expectation of a better future, hope is action-oriented and a skill that can be learned. “We often use the word ‘hope’ in place of wishing, like you hope it rains today or you hope someone’s well,” said Chan Hellman, PhD, a professor of psychology and founding director of the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma. “But wishing is passive toward a goal, and hope is about taking action toward it.”
The good news is that hope is not a fixed trait; it can be cultivated and strengthened. Here are some strategies to nurture hope in your life:
Set Realistic Goals: Break down larger goals into smaller, achievable steps. This creates a sense of progress and reinforces the belief in your ability to succeed.
Identify Multiple Pathways: Explore different strategies and approaches to reach your goals. This flexibility fosters a sense of agency and adaptability.
Focus on Strengths: Recognize and appreciate your unique talents and abilities. Leverage your strengths to overcome challenges and achieve your goals.
Practice Gratitude: Cultivate a habit of gratitude by acknowledging the positive aspects of your life. This shifts your focus towards abundance and fosters a sense of optimism.
Connect with Others: Nurture supportive relationships with friends, family, or a therapist. Sharing your hopes and dreams with others can provide encouragement and validation.
Engage in Meaningful Activities: Pursue activities that bring you joy and fulfillment. Whether it’s volunteering, pursuing a hobby, or spending time in nature, engaging in meaningful activities can foster a sense of purpose and hope.
The Ripple Effect of Hope
Hope is not only beneficial for individuals but also has a positive impact on communities and society as a whole. When individuals are hopeful, they are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors, contribute to their communities, and work towards a better future for all.
In a world often filled with challenges and uncertainties, hope serves as a guiding light, reminding us of the possibilities that lie ahead. By nurturing hope within ourselves and others, we can create a more resilient, optimistic, and emotionally healthy world.
Middle age, often defined as the years between 40 and 65, is a time of significant transition for many women. It’s a period marked by physical, emotional, and social changes, which can ripple through all aspects of life, particularly emotional health and relationships. I am a middle-aged women (funny that it is still hard to say that aloud), and I can fully attest to the surge of introspection, questions about priorities, life direction, who I choose to give my time to and preoccupation with my son launching in the next year.
We are particularly susceptible to emotional challenges, with factors such as hormonal fluctuations, empty nest syndrome, caregiving responsibilities, and career changes all contributing to increased stress and emotional turmoil. Additionally, relationship dynamics may shift during this time, with marital satisfaction often declining and shifts in friendships.
While these transitions can be challenging, they also present incredible opportunities for growth and self-discovery. By understanding the common emotional and relationship challenges we face and adopting effective coping strategies, women can navigate this phase of life with greater resilience and emotional well-being.
Emotional Challenges & Strategies:
Hormonal fluctuations: The perimenopause and menopause transition can trigger a range of emotional symptoms, including mood swings, anxiety, and depression. Lifestyle changes such as regular exercise, a healthy diet, and adequate sleep can help manage these symptoms. Seeking medical professionals with a focus on this time of life is also an option.
Empty nest syndrome: When children leave home, it can leave parents feeling a sense of loss and sadness. It’s important to acknowledge these feelings and find new ways to fill the void, such as pursuing hobbies, volunteering, or reconnecting with friends.
Caregiving responsibilities: Many middle-aged women find themselves caring for aging parents or other family members. This can be emotionally and physically draining. Seeking support from other family members, friends, or professional caregivers can help ease the burden.
Career changes: Some women may experience career transitions in middle age, whether due to retirement, downsizing, or a desire for a change. It’s important to explore new opportunities and set new goals to maintain a sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Relationship Challenges & Strategies
Marital satisfaction: Studies have shown that marital satisfaction can declines in middle age, as reflected in communication problems, unmet emotional needs, intimacy/sexual issues and changes in roles. All of this can be improved with adequate attention to the issues (rather than sweeping them under the rug), spending quality time together, and seeking couples counseling if needed.
Evolving friendships: As life circumstances change, friendships may also evolve. It’s important to nurture existing friendships while also being open to making new connections. In this phase of life, it’s not uncommon to feel moved to re-evaluate friendships for more quality over quantity.
Dating after divorce or widowhood: For women who find themselves single in middle age, dating can be daunting. It’s important to work through any unresolved grief or loss to be emotionally available and ready. Take things slow.
Additional Strategies for Emotional Well-being:
Mindfulness and meditation: These practices can help manage stress, anxiety, and depression by promoting self-awareness and emotional regulation.
Therapy or counseling: Talking to a therapist can provide a safe space to explore feelings, work through any emotional wounds, develop coping strategies and get support.
Social connections: Maintaining strong social connections is an integral part of emotional health. Make an effort to spend time with friends and family, join social groups, or volunteer in your community.
Self-care: Prioritize activities that bring you joy and relaxation, such as reading, listening to music, taking a bath, or spending time in nature. Identify what self-care is for you and make it a part of your routine.
Middle age is a time of significant transition, but it doesn’t have to be a time of emotional turmoil. By understanding the common challenges and adopting effective coping strategies, women can navigate this phase of life with grace and resilience. One of the most important things I’m doing to help navigate this time is to form a team of my most beloved and trusted allies. Consider who might be on your team. It’s never too late to prioritize your emotional health and cultivate fulfilling relationships.
Lastly, it’s also never too late to do work through unresolved wounds stemming from childhood via family of origin work in therapy. You’ll be in the best shape possible to successfully transition through this phase if you are as baggage-free as possible.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In 2024, organizations faced an average of 1,308 cyber attacks per week in Q1, a 28% rise from the previous quarter and 5% year-over-year. And what’s even worrisome is that cybercrime losses reached $12.8 billion in 2023 and are expected to hit $23.84 trillion by 2027.
Undoubtedly, securing your business in today’s digital business landscape isn’t just about protecting against cyber threats — it’s about resilience.
You can always fall for the latest threats since cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated while sneaking into business networks. Hence, you need a more robust cybersecurity plan backed by cyber resilience that goes beyond conventional cybersecurity strategy.
Cyber resilience isn’t a buzzword; it’s a necessity and a proactive approach that goes beyond conventional security. It ensures your organization withstands and recovers from potential threats without much impact on your business.
In a nutshell, cyber resilience is about building walls of protection and having the resilience to bounce back stronger.
Let’s discover why embracing resilience should be a top priority for businesses to ensure continuity and future success in the ever-expanding cybersecurity landscape.
Cyber resilience is your organization’s ability to prevent, withstand and smoothly recover from various cybersecurity incidents. Cyber resilience isn’t about preventing cyberattacks — it’s about ensuring your organization can swiftly recover and continue to operate after an incident.
Nobody can predict the next threat to your organization and customers, especially in an era where machine learning and artificial intelligence have broadened the horizons and increased threat vectors.
Hence, a robust incident response plan is undeniably the need of the hour for businesses that are about to reinvent their cybersecurity posture.
Remember, a cybersecurity strategy lacking a robust incident response plan is good for nothing since cybercriminals are already exploring new ways to target end users and customers to exploit their personal information and gain access to sensitive business details.
On the other hand, cyber resilience not only ensures stringent cybersecurity against immediate threats but eventually mitigates long-term costs. Hence, investing in cyber resilience would surely safeguard your business from financial devastation and ensure smooth continuity.
Now that we’ve learned about cyber resilience and its importance, let’s emphasize how you can incorporate it into your business.
Most businesses mistake cyber resilience for cybersecurity. However, they are pretty different and hold their own importance at different levels.
Securing your organization against modern threats is crucial, but it’s also important to prepare for the worst. For example, you must have a plan to deal with a data or privacy breach.
If you wish to protect your organization from the latest threats, your cybersecurity must include a comprehensive cyber resilience checklist.
Whether it is regular audits, employee training, or advanced threat detection through technology, you must always be geared up to handle any cyber incident.
Your cybersecurity checklist to supercharge your cyber resilience
1. Regular security audits
Scheduled audits are crucial to uncover potential threats and vulnerabilities before cybercriminals can exploit them. Addressing the issues well in advance can help you prepare a solid plan for the worst-case scenario and bounce back stronger.
Here’s what you can do:
Look for outdated software: It’s crucial to check and update your defense software and firewalls since outdated software is more susceptible to ransomware attacks and other threats.
Incidence response drill: Organizing an incident response drill will help identify gaps in your communication protocol and eventually help you overcome the delayed response time during a cyberattack. Hence, scheduling quarterly incident response drills is crucial once you’ve completed the security audit.
Engage third-party experts: Involving third-party cybersecurity experts can provide an unbiased evaluation of your security measures and help create a robust cyber resilience program. Experts can uncover vulnerabilities your internal teams might overlook and help prepare an action response plan accordingly.
2. Strengthening your human firewall through employee training and awareness programs
Human error leads to cybersecurity breaches. Ensuring your employees are well-trained to handle any vulnerability is critical to building cyber resilience.
Regular training sessions: Regular training and updating your employees on the latest threat vectors and best practices are essential. Using real-world scenarios to illustrate various threats and their corresponding responses would shield your organization from potential threats and minimize losses during an unforeseen event.
Phishing simulations: Implementing phishing simulations to test your employees’ ability to recognize and respond to phishing attacks is crucial for safeguarding sensitive information. Using the results to identify improvement areas will help tailor training to minimize human error.
Clear policies and procedures: Establishing clear cybersecurity procedures and policies within your organization is crucial to building resilience. Ensure the policies are easily accessible and understood by everyone in the organization.
3. Building a robust incident response team is your frontline defense
A dedicated incident response team is all you need for swift and effective action during a cybersecurity incident. This will help minimize the impact, leading to fewer financial and reputational losses.
Define roles and responsibilities: You must clearly define roles and responsibilities for every team member regardless of their job title and experience. It’s crucial to ensure that everyone knows their duties and responsibilities promptly during an incident and the situation.
Invoke the potential of modern tools and technologies: Using threat intelligence tools, data encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and Zero Trust architecture can reinforce your overall cybersecurity resilience program.
Continuous improvement: Conducting a thorough review to identify areas for improvement after every drill and incident. This will help you continuously update your incident response plan based on the recent findings.
Final thoughts
In this modern digital business landscape, the increasing cyber threats and sophistication of cybercriminals demand next-level security — cyber resilience.
Cyber resilience is a vital strategy for businesses to ensure they stay up and running even in the event of a cyber incident and can quickly contain a breach without financial and reputational losses.
Hence, embracing cyber resilience shouldn’t be a luxury; it must be an essential pillar of your cybersecurity foundation.
Brian Klaas’ Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters wasn’t meant to have anything to do with personal growth. The political scientist wrote it for those who are“trying to make sense of an incredibly bewildering, rapidly changing world where they feel despair about their lack of control” (himself included).
As flukes would have it, that’s the very nature of personal growth—exploring the meaning of this uncontrollable life and its significance for each and every one of us.
The thing is, we control nothing, but we influence everything. That’s the motto Brian shares with Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani, the host of the Mindvalley Book Club. (You can watch this interview with a free Mindvalley account.)
“Every action we do, every choice we make, every person we encounter in our lives—we’re part of this sort of intermeshed web that creates change,” he adds. “And it affects the trajectories of our lives. It affects the trajectories of other people’s lives.”
This interplay between chaos and order isn’t just a profound lesson. It’s a practical guide to harnessing the power of seemingly random events to your advantage.
The Fluke Factor: Is Your Life a Product of Randomness?
Fluke, as you may know, is an unexpected stroke of good luck, like finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk. However, in the way that Brian presents it in his book, it’s how randomness plays in your daily existence.
Missed train, burnt toast, wrong turn, heartbreak, a split-second decision… these “flukes,” it turns out, might actually be pivotal moments steering your life’s direction. It’s essentially chaos theory in motion—small actions can lead to significant, unforeseen outcomes.
You can’t write out the chaos… Our lives exist somewhere between chaos and order, right? It’s not complete disorder. It’s not complete order.
— Brian Klaas, political scientist and author of Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters
Take the movie Sliding Doors, for instance. Helen’s life takes two drastically different paths, depending on whether she catches a single train.
Brian’s own personal anecdote about a tragic event involving his ancestor, which, though devastating, indirectly paved the path for his own existence.
These seemingly random events highlight how big of an impact chance encounters can have on our life’s trajectory.
That can make everything seem like it’s predestined—maktub, for lack of a better word—and if that’s the case, our life is out of our control.
The thing is, there’s a constant effort to make sense of the messy world around us, especially in fields like sociology and political science. We try to create clear-cut models to explain complex issues, like how societies function or how our life unfolds. These models, like economic forecasts, give us a sense of order.
Life, however, is rarely that predictable. Unexpected events and uncertainties are part of the equation. Trying to force everything into a neat narrative just doesn’t work.
“You can’t write out the chaos,” Brian states. Our lives exist somewhere between chaos and order, where “it’s not complete disorder, it’s not complete order.”
Does Accepting Flukes Mean You’re Sitting On Your Laurels?
While you can’t control everything, that doesn’t mean you sit back and twiddle your thumbs. Instead, acknowledging the unpredictable nature of life allows you to overcome perfectionism and, instead, focus more effectively on the areas where you can make a difference.
Let’s take Kristina as an example. She, too, is in this life due to a “mass murder,” thanks to a “pretty bloodthirsty dictatorship.”
But instead of sitting on her laurels, she’s injecting goodness into the world where she can—through her book Becoming Flawesome: The Key to Living an Imperfectly Authentic Life, through her interactions on the Mindvalley Book Club, by being a mother, and so on and so forth.
“The key takeaway is to act with good intentions, even though the outcome might be uncertain,” says Brian. So strike up a conversation with a stranger, plant a tree, write a book… not because you can predict the butterfly effect of these actions, but because you aim to inject positive energy into the world.
“I think it’s actually a happier way to live—to acknowledge the limits of your control,” he adds, “but then, try to maximize the way that you influence the world according to your values and passions and desires and the people you care about and so on.”
The fact of the matter is, some things are out of your control, like where you’re born or your natural talents. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless. You can still try to influence the world around you based on your values and goals.
The key takeaway is to act with good intentions, even though the outcome might be uncertain.
— Brian Klaas, political scientist and author of Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters
This way, you find a balance between accepting randomness and taking responsibility for your actions. It’s a more realistic and, ultimately, happier way to live.
My new book—FLUKE: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters—is out now! Linking chaos theory to humanity, it explains why our lives—and societies—are swayed by random, accidental, arbitrary forces, and how to better live with that knowledge. pic.twitter.com/pKCVfTRm5D
If you cannot eliminate chaos, the question then is: what do you do with it?
“There’s actually some upside to it,” says Brian, “if you understand how to embrace it, harness it, and play with it more effectively.”
Here are a few ways he suggests to find the calm within the chaos of life:
1. Schedule time for leisure and contemplation
Sometimes the most impactful moments come from embracing the unexpected. So make room for unstructured time in your day.
That doesn’t mean mindless scrolling or social media binges. Instead, set aside dedicated breaks for activities that allow your mind to wander and explore—a walk in nature, practicing meditation, or engaging in a free-flowing creative pursuit like drawing or playing music.
“Human brains need the space to think,” Brian explains. “They need the space to create.”
It’s what science calls leisure-time invention, where a spark of creativity hits you while you’re relaxing and not under pressure to perform. You might be surprised by what flows from simply allowing yourself to be present in the moment.
2. Focus on building resilience rather than optimization
Google “life hacks” or “self-help” in general, and what you get is advice on optimizing your life to eliminate the inefficiency. It’s a lot of “How can you hustle a little bit faster, a little bit more efficiently, and so on?”
Brian argues that when you optimize too much, you “actually create a lack of resilience.” And any slight disruption can send us into disarray.
For example, from a social system standpoint, a gust of wind turned a ship sideways in the Suez Canal in 2021. This fluke froze nearly $10 billion in trade a day, causing a mega-nightmare in the global trade industry.
“We engineered systems that have no resilience,” Brian explains. “They’re extremely brittle, precisely because they are optimized to the limit, right? So when anything goes wrong, when the little noise or randomness of life enters the picture, everything falls apart.”
That happened with the Arab Spring, 9/11, and even the pandemic. Similarly, when we optimize our own lives, a slight disruption can send the whole thing crashing down. A meticulously planned morning, for instance, can crumble if you accidentally burn your toast or your child wakes up sick.
The thing is, resilience, according to research, can help you have better emotional regulation, recover faster from stress, and have the ability to find meaning and growth even in negative situations.
So, as Brian advises, instead of trying to optimize every aspect of your life, focus on building resilience.
3. Rethink success and find meaning beyond work
Society often defines success in terms of productivity, status, and material wealth. Be the next Elon Musk, the next Jeff Bezos, the next Oprah Winfrey… However, we’re all different. There’s only one Elon in this world. One Jeff. One Oprah. And one you.
“All eight billion people have different values, different interests, different passions, different goals,” Brian points out. “And yet, we all are trying to get the same script about how to live a life. And I think that’s very counterproductive.”
He suggests that you re-evaluate your definition of success. What truly matters to you? Is it connecting with others, making a positive impact on the world, or simply living a life filled with curiosity and exploration?
By prioritizing these intrinsic values, you can discover a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment. And one that goes far beyond the confines of your job title or bank account.
Awaken Your Unstoppable
So the question is: is life a fluke? Yes, according to Brian. “One tiny fluke can change everything in an instant.”
Like you reading these words—it’s a chance encounter, a fortunate click that brought you here. But what if you could harness the power of these “flukes” to create your own unstoppable momentum?
The Mindvalley Book Club with Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani is a gateway to a world where every book opens a new door, every discussion sparks a new idea, and every member could be the catalyst to your next big breakthrough.
You’ll get exclusive access to her monthly picks of the hottest, most thought-provoking self-help books, plus notifications about her weekly podcasts, where she chats with brilliant authors like Brian Klaas.
Sign up now and start turning flukes into opportunities.
There’s a primal instinct all humans have—a biological alarm system, if you will—designed to keep us safe from harm. And that’s fear.
The unfortunate part is, that alarm system sometimes gets a little stuck, leaving you paralyzed by anxieties that hold you back from all the goodness that life has to offer.
“So many fears we have are acquired,” highlights Marisa Peer, a world-renowned Rapid Transformational Therapy trainer, in her Uncompromised Life Quest on Mindvalley. But when you learn how to overcome fear, you’re no longer a prisoner of your own mind but rather a master of it.
What Is Fear?
Fear is like a double-edged sword. On one side, it’s a survival mechanism that alerts us to threats and protects us from danger. On the other, it can morph into a paralyzing force, preventing us from truly enjoying and living life.
But what is fear, exactly? It’s essentially your body’s response to perceived threats.
“The mind,” says Marisa, “works like this: It always does what it really thinks is in your very, very best interest.”
So when you encounter something scary, your body reacts almost instantly, thanks to your body’s fear center, the amygdala. This part of your brain releases stress hormones that prime you to fight or to flight—your heart’s racing, breathing’s fast, palms sweating, on top of a paralyzing sense of dread.
The thing about fear is, it can take many forms. It can be a jolt of adrenaline when you see a spider scurry across the floor, a knot in your stomach before giving a presentation, or a cold sweat when you’re facing death. While these situations are vastly different, they all have one thing in common—the primal urge to protect yourself from harm.
Sure, fear can be a downer. But this evolutionary trait has kept our ancestors safe from predators, dangerous environments, and all sorts of other threats.
However, it doesn’t always have a bad rap. In fact, it can be a powerful motivator in certain situations. It can push you to excel, avoid risky situations, and be more cautious.
The problem arises when fear becomes excessive or irrational. And that’s when it can hold you back from life.
Fears vs. phobias vs. anxiety
Fears, phobias, and anxiety are all connected to the emotional responses you experience. However, they’re unique in their own way.
Fear is the actual emotion. A phobia is like an extreme version of fear focused on a specific thing. And anxiety is a more general feeling of worry that can range from mild to very intense.
Here are some other differences:
Fear
Phobia
Anxiety
Trigger
Specific, real threat.
Specific object or situation, often with little to no real danger.
General or undefined; can arise without an obvious trigger.
Intensity
Moderate, manageable
Intense and irrational
Moderate to severe
Disruption
May cause some avoidance or nervousness
Significantly disrupts daily life
Can interfere with daily life but not always
Duration
Temporary reaction
Persistent and long-lasting
Can be constant or episodic
Cause
Evolutionary response
Often unknown, may be triggered by a negative experience
Can be triggered by stress, genetics, or medical conditions
Examples
Fear of flying, fear of public speaking
Fear of heights (acrophobia), fear of enclosed spaces (claustrophobia)
Generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety
5 Most Common Types of Fears
While corrupt government officials and economic collapse are at the top of what Americans fear the most in 2023, according to the Chapman University Survey of American Fears, there are some more common ways they can manifest.
1. Fear of heights
You know that scene in Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol where Ethan Hunt’s scaling the Burj Khalifa in Dubai? If you felt queasy and white-knuckled from that, it could very well be that you have a fear of heights.
Acrophobia, it’s called. And what can happen when you don’t know how to overcome the fear of heights? Well, even the most scenic hike can turn into an exercise in sweaty-palmed terror. Or a relaxing ride on a ferris wheel into a heart-pounding ordeal.
The reality is, this phobia is part of our built-in survival kit. Being cautious in high places helped our ancestors avoid falls that could be dangerous…or even deadly. So, part of the brain is always on alert.
Then there’s also the personal side. If you had a scary experience with heights before, like a fall or a close call, your brain might link it with danger. Even watching someone else have those experiences can plant a seed of fear in your mind.
“Millions of years after evolution, our brain still thinks if we stand right at the top of a high building, it should make us feel slightly sick,” says Marisa. “So we pull back, and now it’s saved us because that’s our mind’s job—keep you safe on the planet.”
2. Fear of failure
We’re all very familiar with this dread—atychiphobia, the fear of failure. It can be a silent yet powerful inhibitor of ambition, stopping you from trying new things or taking risks.
Very few of us know how to overcome the fear of failure. The reason is, it often stems from a deep-seated belief that your worth is tied to your achievements.
So you end up turning down promotions, avoiding new hobbies, or giving up on goals because the thought of not succeeding brings intense discomfort or anxiety. Or you might delay starting tasks because you’re worried you might not complete them perfectly.
There’s research that has shed light on how common this phobia is. For instance, a survey by Linkagoal found that of 1,083 adult respondents, 31% are more scared of failing than they are of spiders (30%), being home alone (9%), or even the paranormal (15%).
3. Fear of public speaking
The idea of standing in front of a crowd and exposing yourself can make even the most confident person turn into a quivering mess. Judgment, scrutiny, and forgetting your words—it can all be too much.
However, the fear of public speaking, or glossophobia, is more about the fear of being rejected than the act of speaking itself. So why is it so common?
Firstly, social acceptance is a basic human need. We’re wired to want to fit in and be part of a group. The moment we stand up to speak, we put ourselves in a vulnerable position, open to judgment.
What’s more, past experiences can play a significant role. A single embarrassing moment during a presentation in the past can stick with us, making us dread any future opportunities to speak. It’s as if our brain keeps replaying that one bad experience, warning us not to put ourselves in that situation again.
4. Fear of flying
Flying can make even the most necessary trip feel like a near-death experience. While it’s a modern marvel, you’re essentially strapped into a metal tube hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour…and this mental image alone can trigger a paralyzing fear for some people.
If you’re aerophobic (that’s having a fear of flying), you may experience turbulence-induced nausea, a racing heart, or difficulty breathing. Mentally, you might find yourself imagining worst-case scenarios or obsessing over every little bump or sound during the flight.
The thing is, the fear of flying isn’t always as straightforward as the fear of heights. Claustrophobia, the fear of enclosed spaces, can also play a role, as you may feel crammed into a crowded cabin with limited personal space.
Additionally, people with aerophobia may have a general mistrust of technology, worrying about mechanical failure (although modern airplanes are incredibly safe and undergo rigorous inspections).
5. Fear of intimacy
“It’s possible to be fearful of love, especially if you have never experienced true, authentic love,” says Dr. Trillion Small, a licensed marriage and family therapist and mental performance coach, in her TEDx Talk. This is called the fear of intimacy.
It’s where you might find yourself sabotaging any promising relationships. For instance, you might build emotional walls or avoid commitment by throwing yourself into passionate but ultimately fleeting flings.
This fear is often rooted in past experiences, like relationship trauma or witnessing someone close go through a painful breakup. It can also stem from the belief that closeness inevitably leads to pain or disappointment.
“I believe that our greatest sufferings, sometimes, is not even from what actually happened to us,” Dr. Small adds. “It’s from the lies and the stories we told ourselves after the event.”
And when we allow ourselves to believe them, we “foresake the ability to be who we truly are, which is loving beings, and we forsake the opportunity to receive what we truly need and love and desire, which is love and belonging.”
Other types of fear
The list of fears truly does extend far and wide. Here are a few you may recognize:
Thanatophobia (the fear of death)
FOMO (the fear of missing out)
Nyctophobia (the fear of the dark)
Autophobia (the fear of being alone)
Arachnophobia (the fear of spiders)
Thalassophobia (the fear of the ocean or large bodies of water)
Claustrophobia (the fear of enclosed spaces)
Agoraphobia (the fear of places or situations that might cause feelings of being trapped, helpless, or embarrassed)
It’s important to remember that this is a normal human emotion. However, if it becomes excessive or debilitating, seeking professional help can help you learn how to overcome fear.
The Effects of Fear
Fear, in small doses, can be a vital survival tool. However, when it turns chronic, it can wreak havoc on your mind, body, and soul.
Mentally, your mind can become overwhelmed, making it hard to think clearly or make decisions. One study even shows that constant stress can not only exacerbate anxiety-like behaviors but also significantly disrupt sleep patterns.
Physically, fear triggers your fight-or-flight response. While this is good in certain situations, being in a state of high alertness can lead to serious health problems, including insomnia and heart issues. What’s more, it can manifest as headaches, stomachaches, and other physical ailments.
Spiritually, fear’s most sneaky impact is how it holds onto your soul—your feeling of calm and happiness. It can wear down your confidence and make you feel cut off from other people and the world. This might leave you feeling alone and isolated, making it hard to enjoy the moments that give life its value.
How to Overcome the Fear: 3 No-Fail Strategies from Marisa Peer
Being bugged out doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Here are three powerful ways, inspired by Marisa herself, that can help with overcoming fear:
1. Dialogue with your mind
Our brains are wired to protect us. And when we get scared, it’s because our brain mistakenly believes the fear is in our best interest. For example, the fear of heights is there to prevent us from doing something potentially harmful, like getting too close to the edge of a tall building.
By rationalizing with your mind—reassuring yourself that you’re safe despite the panic—you can gradually reduce the fear’s intensity.
Like, if you’re dealing with vertigo, Marisa suggests telling yourself, “I’m safe. Look, there’s a window this thick. I’m going to stay here and breathe, and keep saying I’m safe. I’m safe.”
This approach is about understanding that your fear, while a natural protective mechanism, isn’t always based on current reality. By calmly and rationally speaking to yourself, you can reassure your mind and ease your feelings of dread.
If traditional methods of self-talk and relaxation techniques aren’t enough, hypnotherapy for your anxiety can be a powerful tool. Consider consulting a qualified hypnotherapist, like Marisa, to explore this option.
2. Feel the fear and do it anyway
Fear often thrives in the shadows. The more you avoid a situation, the bigger it looms in your mind.
“Your brain’s job is to keep you alive on the planet,” Marisa explains. “And it does that by moving you away from anything it thinks will cause you pain.”
So, take a deep breath and step into the discomfort.
This is what’s known as exposure therapy. It involves gradual, controlled exposure to the things that give you the jitters in a way that allows you to confront them without overwhelming yourself.
For instance, if you have a fear of flying, you might want to start by watching videos about it. Then, visit an airport. And eventually, book a short flight.
By doing things in small, manageable doses, you teach your brain that the feared object or situation is not as dangerous as it perceives. And this helps to diminish the feelings of unease over time.
3. Focus on the present moment
Fear often comes from worrying about what might happen next or feeling bad about what’s already happened. But you can fight this by staying in the now.
One powerful way to do this is through mindfulness practices, like meditation for anxiety. They help you center your thoughts on the here and now rather than on feelings of dread.
Gretchen Rubin, the New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Life in Five Senses, has a great hack on how to overcome your fears and anxiety: focus on your senses.
“If you’re feeling very anxious and thinking, ‘I’m just going to take a minute, and I’m just going to dial into my body in my five senses…,’” she says. “People do this as a meditation technique where they go through their five senses and they think, ‘What am I seeing? What am I hearing, smelling, tasting, touching? And so that itself can be very grounding.”
By directing your attention to the present, you’re less caught up in worries about things that haven’t happened and can’t change things that already have.
Heal. Rise. Thrive.
“The only fear to fear is fear itself,” says Marisa. And you have the power to overcome it.
If you’re looking for more in-depth guidance and strategies to do so, consider exploring Mindvalley’s Instant Transformational Hypnotherapy free masterclass with Marisa Peer. Her expertise and practical approaches to overcoming fear could be the next step in your journey towards a fearless and empowered life, much like Vittorio Martinelli, a CEO and Mindvalley member from Milan, Italy.
“The process with Marisa guided me through a deep and lasting change,” he says.“Addictions, anxiety, and fear melt away.”
So take a deep breath, rewrite your inner script, and step into the unknown. You might be surprised by what you achieve.
