Procrastination is a signal worth listening to
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with procrastination. For the longest time, I anchored that word to productivity or, more accurately, the lack of it. When I procrastinated, I’d feel that familiar pang of guilt—like I was failing at some invisible standard of achievement. I’d tell myself, “You’re just putting …
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The signposts waiting to guide your path
You have done all the “right things”. On paper, you have an incredible job. There’s just one tiny detail you’ve been ignoring…it’s not your dream job. Every day, little by little, that spark you used to have becomes more and more like a shadow of itself. You’re relying on heavy …
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Reimagining insurance and resilience
Imagine living in a place where the risks of everyday life are steadily increasing. Not because of anything you did, but because the climate is changing, and with it, the stability of your home, your community, and your financial security. That’s the reality for many of us today. Climate change …
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The superpower I hid for 38 years—and what it cost me
For most of my life, I pretended I didn’t see you. I convinced myself it wasn’t my place to notice your sadness, your fear, your pain. From a young age, I learned that seeing too much could make people uncomfortable. Acknowledging what I saw—your vulnerability, your cracks—seemed to threaten the …
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The secret that turned my public speaking anxiety into excitement
“I could never do that. That’s my worst fear.” It’s the most common response I hear when I tell someone I’m a keynote speaker. And I get it. I used to be terrified of public speaking too. A 2001 Gallup poll found that 40% of Americans cited public speaking as …
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Moving Beyond CSR
Most CSR departments are run like this: A few passionate people, operating on the company’s fringes, are put in charge of creating impact. These disconnected passion projects don’t constitute a purpose. CSR departments tend to be afterthoughts. The programming they run is inconsistent and doesn’t ladder up to a larger …
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Improving Healthcare Systems
Arogya Parivar (“Healthy Family” in Hindi) is a program first launched in India by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, aimed at improving the healthcare system. The problem: Rural communities lacked access to medical infrastructure: doctors, medication and health education. The solution: Novartis partnered with local health care entities, …
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Is shared value the best business secret?
“Corporate Social Responsibility is really about reducing the harm that a company causes through its operations or its product. So, being sure there isn’t child labor. Being sure the product isn’t bad for you. Being sure you have fair wages, so on, as well as reducing your environmental footprint. But …
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Your voice matters. Use it.
Beautycounter is among a new crop of companies lobbying the government for tighter regulations in support of the public good. I’m so impressed by the impact one company can make on an entire industry but, as Lindsay Dahl—Beautycounter’s SVP of Social Mission—tells us in this week’s Purpose and Profit episode, …
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Trash to treasure
Last week Imperfect Foods announced that they had become a certified B Corp, adding to a growing list of over 4,000 other certified purpose-driven companies around the world. If you’ve never heard of them, Imperfect Foods began as an online grocer that rerouted produce that was deemed “too imperfect-looking” for …
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