Kantar's codebase was legacy old. The kind of technical debt that isn't a line item on a sprint board but a structural reality that shapes every decision the company makes. Rebuilding the architecture to support what I'd designed would have cost more than the organization was willing to invest, regardless of the Barilla deal sitting on the table.
In behavioral science, identity follows action. If you're generous, you'll begin to see yourself as generous. If you're a patient person, you'll come to see that as part of who you are. Over time, the brain will wire itself to repeat these patterns.
Minutes into teaching my business school class, I asked what seemed like an innocent question: What is one word that describes how you feel about AI right now? One word. That's it. My students looked up, looked down, looked anywhere to avoid eye contact. Silence. "I promise," I said, "this is a safe space." Something I'd repeat throughout the course-and I meant it. Then the answers came quickly, and the energy in the room shifted as they arrived. You could feel the sheen of performance
We live in a world where spending freely is often seen as a sign of success. Flash your credit card without checking the price tag, and you're "living your best life." But here's what I've learned after running my own businesses and studying consumer behavior: The shopping habits that look "cheap" are actually the ones that separate the financially intelligent from those drowning in debt. The truth? Those "cheap" behaviors are about discipline, long-term thinking, and understanding the real value of money.
Do you blame others for the choices you are making? Have you blamed others for the previous choices you have made? To shed more light on these questions, you might also ask yourself: "What am I responsible for, and what power do I have?" From there, you might agree with this self-reflective response: "I am responsible for, and I've got the power over what I think, do, say, learn, and choose" (Purje, 2014).
The oil tycoon J. Paul Getty was rumoured to have said that his three rules for how to become rich were: Rise early. Work hard. Strike oil. It's one of those eminently quotable remarks because it captures something we all know to be true, that luck and chance have as much to do with success as anything else. Yet we don't value people for their luck.
Back in the day, a simple fact rang true: understanding required construction. If you wanted clarity, you had to build it from the inside out. You struggled with ambiguity and lived with uncertainty longer than was comfortable. But after all, you were building something. Importantly, this "cognitive building" didn't appear fully formed but emerged brick by brick and thought by thought. That work wasn't a barrier to thought; it was the architecture of thought itself.
They're displaying a fascinating set of personality traits that go much deeper than having their finances sorted. 1) They have exceptional impulse control Think about what it takes to always have exact change ready. You need to resist the urge to spend those coins on vending machines or leave them as tips. You have to plan ahead, knowing what you'll buy and preparing accordingly.
I am a worrier, and have been for most of my life. At some point, someone dear and smart teased me that I worry about the wrong things. The things that hit me, she noted, were never the things I worried about. For a while that left me feeling like an incompetent worrier-until my research caught up. I realized that the things I worry about often don't end up hurting me precisely because worrying helps me diffuse them ahead of time.
Ever since our ancestors first stood upright and squinted at the horizon, we've been wired to notice patterns. A rustle in the grass might have meant a stalking predator. Dark clouds often meant rain. Those who made these connections and guessed that one thing caused another tended to survive. Over time, this ability to link events became one of our most significant evolutionary advantages. It's how we built tools, tamed fire, and eventually invented Wi-Fi.
