March 2025

Written by Natalie Nguyen

As an entrepreneur of a growing business, I wear so many hats other than just owner. I’m part of the marketing team, HR squad, and so much more, and any other business owner likely knows how juggling multiple roles can become, well, time-consuming, to say the least.

With so many responsibilities to tackle throughout the day, there’s just no way I can sustain the energy to correct reports or come up with fresh ideas to advertise my business, which is why I’ve decided to let AI assist me with my workday. While I’m not super adept at communicating with ChatGPT—basic prompts have been the limit of my interactions with the chatbot—I’m learning how to utilize it more fully with these $30 courses.

It seems nearly impossible to get the exact, refined results and answers I want from ChatGPT, which is why this ChatGPT training bundle has been so helpful. Taking these courses has helped me master the art of AI prompts to let the chatbot work for me, both with technical and creative tasks.

Instead of solely relying on ChatGPT to condense notes or explain a topic more clearly, I’ve learned the exact keywords and phrases that ChatGPT responds best to in this bundle’s ‘Creative Writing & Content Creation with ChatGPT’ course.With this knowledge in hand, I’ve been able to get more tailored and sophisticated answers to questions like, “How do I improve X advertising strategy?” and advice for my business’s finances.

I’ve even discovered how to maximize ChatGPT’s abilities for more creative tasks and passed on that knowledge to my creative teams. This bundle has a wide variety of tips for using the chatbot to draft articles, emails, and other copy, helping me save time communicating with my employees and vendors.

Join me and learn how to utilize ChatGPT to its fullest potential to help your business operate more efficiently.

Grab lifetime access to these ChatGPT training courses for just $29.99 for life. Act now while this offer lasts a little while longer.

The 2025 ChatGPT Skills & Creativity Bundle

Only $29.99 at Entrepreneur

StackSocial prices subject to change.

We’ve all heard the U.S. Bureau of Labor stats: 20% of small businesses fail in the first twelve months, and 50% in the first five years. They’re real numbers, but the commonly cited reasons are not why businesses actually fail.

The SBA’s SCORE program claims the number one reason is cash flow; 82% can’t pay this month’s bills and just turn in the keys. Other researchers, including the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) repeat this claim and then add management issues and ineffective planning as the second and third reasons business owners punch out. We’ve all heard a dozen more.

Why do businesses fail?

I founded and built 13 businesses in 10 industries and professions on four continents and have advised hundreds of business owners personally. I can tell you that a business will very rarely fail because of any of the above. It just looks that way on the surface. They actually fail because the business owner is tired, and then everything else starts to fall apart around them. Those symptoms of fatigue get mistaken for the cause of failure.

If finances, management, planning or other business elements were fine at one point but are now daunting roadblocks, these almost always point to fatigue on the part of the owner or leaders, who have just lost enough of their energy to begin to let things slowly decay.

I’ve been there multiple times. When a business is that far in the tank, recovery is not easy, but it has always been possible as long as I was honest with myself and did the work to get my energy back. One of the best self-awareness questions I’ve learned to ask myself over the years has helped me identify early-stage fatigue, “What am I pretending not to know?” Feel free to steal it, and then be brave and ask a friend to answer it for you.

Waiting until these classic symptoms of fatigue show up is not the best time to find out you’re in trouble. It’s a long road back from a lack of money, people mad at your leadership neglect or wandering without a clear vision and a plan. The good news is that there are solid early indicators of fatigue that show up long before any of these, and if you catch yourself early, getting back on track from these early indicators is more of a tweak than a turnaround.

Related: The 6 Reasons for Business Failure, and How to Address Them

Are you reacting to the world around you?

From my own experience and the experience of hundreds of others I’ve worked with, if we’re focused on any of the following reactionary attributes, it’s a counter-logical (but very intuitive) early indicator that you’re already experiencing creeping fatigue:

Toughness – The ability to endure difficult conditions without breaking.

Tenacity – The quality of being determined or persistent, especially in the face of adversity.

Stamina – The capacity to endure prolonged stress or exertion.

Endurance – The ability to withstand difficult conditions over time.

Perseverance – Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

Grit – Courage and resolve in facing hardships.

Make no mistake, these are all great attributes, and I want every one of them. But for the most part, they are largely reactive or even defensive. If you need to put your finger in a dike, these attributes are your best friends. But if you’re regularly working from the mindset of any of the above and are being told by others how proud they are that you are withstanding all the storms, droughts and hardships coming at you, from my experience, you’re in the early stages of burnout.

Be proactive – Make your own business rules

What can we do? We need to adopt the mindset of a stream. A stream has all of the above attributes but only as a foundation for the most important indicator of success:

Relentlessness – showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength or pace: unrelenting

It might take you a minute to see this word differently because we’ve been taught that it is usually connected with something negative – “That salesperson is relentless,” “Our money problems are just relentless.” But if we see our lives and our business as a stream, you might join me in seeing that relentlessness is the defining hallmark of success and fulfillment, both as a business owner and as a human being.

Related: 90% of Online Businesses Fail in Just 4 Months. You Can Avoid the Same Fate By Using These Strategies.

Be the stream

A stream running downhill is relentless above everything else. Sure, it has grit, tenacity and all the other reactive attributes, and those defensive muscles provide a great foundation. But nobody ever won anything by just playing defense. Relentlessness is constantly moving forward and playing offense. I’ve seen countless great businesses reactively bracing against the storms with good cash, good leadership and a great plan, and they all fade against the forward energy of business owners with less going for them, but who are more relentless.

Vision is critical. A stream knows where it’s going – it is relentless about achieving its one goal – to get to the ocean. And Utter Clarity about where it wants to end up is the driving force behind its relentlessness. Every stream on the side of the mountain starts with the ocean as its goal, and it will do everything it has to in order to get there. If it runs into a beaver dam, it doesn’t get emotional because it understands it’s actually causing its own trouble by relentlessly moving forward. It just figures out how to solve problems while on the way to the ocean. If it has to fill up a lake, so be it. And make no mistake, if a stream appears to be meandering in a meadow, it isn’t. It relentlessly takes the shortest path to the ocean, even if sometimes it has to circle back right where it came from first.

Relentlessly toward the goal

Are we relentlessly moving forward, making our own business rules and causing our own trouble, or are we beginning to play defense with largely reactive attributes like toughness, endurance and grit? Streams and effective business owners don’t pride themselves in how they react. That would wear any of us out eventually. Streams focus on relentlessly moving forward and causing their own trouble.

We need the mindset of a stream.

Are you tired, or maybe not yet feeling tired but focused on the reactive and defensive attributes above? First, re-attach your business and your life to the end goal of what it will do for you when the business “arrives.” Then, start moving relentlessly forward again. Go cause your own trouble, stay in trouble and know that the trouble you’re proactively causing will lead you to where you want to end up.

Be the stream. Keep going!

The average salary of a software developer is around $132,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means outsourcing your coding can cost a pretty penny, and it may be time to learn to do it on your own. When you’re ready to get started, Microsoft Visual Studio Pro is where you’ll want to work.

This app is ready to help you boost your productivity and write your own high-quality code, and a lifetime license is just $27.97 — $471 off the usual price — now through March 30 while supplies last.

Work smarter, not harder with this coding helper

Microsoft Visual Studio Pro is a software development tool that is ready to help you take your coding to the next level. You can use it to create apps, websites, or even software systems, ultimately saving you a fortune as it helps you tackle things yourself without hiring people.

Once you’ve learned to write and edit code, you can turn to Microsoft Visual Studio to help you write, edit, and debug on the same platform. It’s a 64-bit IDE (integrated development environment) that comes equipped with built-in integrations and helpful tools so you can tackle projects both large and small.

Microsoft Visual Studio helps you build across languages, allowing you to work with C++, C#, Python, JavaScript, and more. And Intellicode is there to help you type less and code more. It’s kind of like auto-complete for coding.

A debugger can identify and fix the errors in your code, which really helps those who are newer to coding by making troubleshooting easier. The app also includes CodeLens, which shows you recent changes, authors, tests, and commit history so you have a comprehensive overview of your codebase.

Take advantage of this limited-time sale on Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 for Windows, now just $27.97 (reg. $499).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Depending on its complexity, designing a small-business website can cost several thousand dollars. If you’re an entrepreneur in need of creating a website and those figures don’t fit in your budget, let Sellful White Label Website Build and Software help. This white-label website builder and software is on sale for just $399 for a lifetime ERP Agency Plan.

Create a website for a fraction of the average cost

Whether you’re looking to build a simple website or hoping to automate your business, you can set it up in just a few clicks. Websites, landing pages, funnels, and more are all generated automatically with the power of AI. Need to sell physical or digital products? It’s ready to accommodate that for your business as well.

Aside from getting your sites up and running, Sellful also takes on other tasks that would typically cost extra. Let this handy all-in-one app help you interact with customers, tackling marketing by sending out newsletters or interacting with them via an AI assistant and chatbot ready to help them with features on your website.

Need some help internally? No problem. Sellful can help you manage your workforce by tackling employee recruitment, payroll, and leave requests as well. It also serves as an employee, helping businesses track appointments or bookings with a built-in scheduler that customers can use on the site if needed.

Soulful emphasizes efficiency and scalability, so it’s ready to help you take your tiny business to the next level. You don’t have to worry about Sellful growing with you — it provides 100GB of file storage and 50,000 free email sends.

From starting up sites to helping run your business, let Sellful be your right-hand man. It’s just $399 here for a limited time (reg. $23,940).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Building a startup isn’t about chasing certainty — it’s about learning to thrive in the unknown. Growth, risk and opportunity collide at every turn, creating a dynamic that’s as exhilarating as it is precarious. Fragility, momentum and reinvestment aren’t just forces at play; they’re defining elements of the entrepreneurial journey.

My experiences, from building an early services business to co-founding Density and now leading Bread, have taught me that success doesn’t come from avoiding these forces. It comes from understanding their interplay and navigating them with intention.

The fragility paradox

Startups are fragile by design. Whether you’re building a product, managing cash flow or growing a team, every move feels like stacking bricks on an unsteady foundation. Even when things are going well, fragility is always lurking beneath the surface.

Our first business, a services company, grew quickly. Within a year, we hit over $1 million in revenue, and by all appearances, it seemed stable. But services businesses are deceptively fragile. Revenue is tied to a handful of clients, and losing just one can send everything into freefall.

That’s exactly what happened. A major client left, and suddenly, we couldn’t make payroll. My co-founders and I stopped paying ourselves, cut expenses and worked to rebuild. We got through it, but the experience left an indelible lesson: Just because things are good now doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. Fragility demands vigilance.

This reality became even more apparent as we reinvested profits into new ideas. Every project we launched was fragile — many failed outright — but fragility wasn’t a reason to stop. It was a reminder to focus, prioritize and act decisively in the face of uncertainty.

Related: How Can You Make Sure Your Business Will Survive Anything? Try These 3 Proven Strategies

Momentum myopia

Momentum can feel like the antidote to fragility. When a product launch gains traction or revenue starts climbing, it’s tempting to think you’re on an unstoppable path. But momentum, left unchecked, can create blind spots.

At Density, we launched our first hardware product — a break-beam sensor for tracking foot traffic — amid a wave of excitement. Demand was growing, and the pressure to move fast was immense. But the product wasn’t ready. Accuracy issues in real-world conditions became obvious after deployment, and the flaws forced us into a costly reset.

We had let momentum dictate our decisions, pushing forward without questioning whether the foundation was solid. It was a painful but necessary lesson: Momentum is only valuable when it’s paired with reflection. Pausing to evaluate doesn’t kill progress; it ensures that growth is sustainable.

The reinvestment imperative

If fragility demands focus and momentum requires discipline, reinvestment is the leap of faith that drives discovery. Every dollar we earned in the services business went back into the company, not just to sustain operations but to fund experiments.

Most of those experiments failed. We built products no one needed, sunk time into overly complex solutions and made costly missteps. But one of those ideas — Density — stood out. It was fragile, like all early projects, but it had potential.

Its potential led to our decision to shut down the services business and focus entirely on Density. It wasn’t easy. Investors made it clear: If we wanted their backing, we had to go all in. Letting go of a profitable business to bet on an unproven product felt like jumping off a cliff. But without reinvestment — without those years of experimentation funded by services profits — we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make that leap.

Related: Why You Need to Reinvest Half of What You Earn Back Into Your Company

Bringing it together

These lessons didn’t end with Density. At Bread, they shape how we think about building resilient businesses. Fragility, momentum and reinvestment aren’t challenges to be eliminated — they’re dynamics to be navigated.

Fragility forces founders to confront hard truths and focus on what matters most. Momentum provides energy but must be managed with reflection. And reinvestment, though risky, creates the conditions for transformation.

The journey of entrepreneurship isn’t about avoiding failure — it’s about learning from it, adapting and taking intentional risks. At Bread, we approach each founder and portfolio company with this mindset, not to shield them from these forces but to help them navigate them successfully.

Fragility, momentum and reinvestment are constants. But when embraced, they’re not just forces to endure — they’re the foundation of what makes startups thrive.

We live in a world where so much of our success is determined by superficial things. Whether it’s the car you drive, the house you own or the places you holiday in, there is a belief that what you have to show for yourself indicates your level of worth.

After years of working in the marketing industry, I’d argue that this is far from the case when it comes to business. Sure, how many social media followers, views or likes you have makes a difference – but they are also vanity metrics. What really generates impact is how well your business meets its consumer’s needs.

The secret to lead generation is knowing what your customers really want, getting the right people engaged and nurturing those relationships to make them last. Let’s explore the question of “how?”

1. Get to know your audience

Knowing what your target audience really wants is the only way to connect with them in a way that will engage them and keep them coming back for more.

2. Capture demand

So many businesses put products out onto the market that flop before they’ve even had a chance to get going. Why? Because there was never a demand for them in the first place.

Examine data and gather information on your target audience to identify their needs and consumption patterns. Research and analysis are the only way to truly understand what your consumers are looking for. Keep up with market trends, use social listening tools and conduct surveys and case studies to capture demand early and save precious time and money.

If you’re an established business, you should review your existing marketing to see what is and isn’t working. Use tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads and social media insights to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing. Part of this process also includes analyzing your competitors.

3. Develop a buyer persona

The best way to fail at your marketing strategy is to create content that you like. You are not the target audience. The aim is to determine what your customers want and need from you.

The other thing to keep in mind is that your intention shouldn’t be to please everyone – it is better to have 100 dedicated clients than 10,000 who are slightly interested. This is where it’s crucial to be able to define your ideal customer. Who do you sell to? What are you offering that targets their pain points and solves their problem?

Creating a customer persona can mean drawing a picture of them, giving them a name, and writing down everything about them. From their age to their income, daily routine, and how many pets they have. Write down every single detail you can think of. This will help shape the image of your ideal customer so you know who your product or service is speaking to.

Related: Buyer Personas: What They Are, Why They Matter and How to Best Build One

4. Build a list of SEO keywords and popular search topics

You want to know what people are most likely to search for when they’re looking for things related to your industry. With the developments in SEO constantly growing, it is easier than ever to gather this wealth of information. Here are some useful free and subscription-based resources:

Related: 9 SEO Tips to Help You Rank No. 1 on Google in 2024

5. Create awareness

Once you know what keywords and search terms people will most likely enter into their search engine, you can flood your content with them to gain traction and visibility. People want to know what your brand is all about, so you must create content that people want to see.

One of the best ways to do this is to get recording. Whether you have the best video camera on the market or you’ve set up your iPhone on a tripod, it doesn’t actually matter much. What does matter is that you’re presenting your audience with what they want to see and hear.

Starting with video gives you a goldmine of content opportunities to make from it. What may start as a full-length video piece can then be cut up into 5-10 short-form videos for various social media platforms, used for social media posts, translated into blogs, and even used for ad copy.

Content is everything when it comes to creating awareness; being resourceful with what you create will free up your time for other important tasks.

6. Protect those leads

If you don’t nurture your leads and follow them through, or you fail to remain in the minds of potential or new customers, your success will begin to fall off.

The smartest way to manage leads is to keep the communication flowing. While you don’t want to bombard or nag at consumers, you do want them to know their value and that you haven’t forgotten about them.

Knowing where your leads are coming from is a great way to tailor content and messaging to them directly. Research and analysis also come in handy again here – review your ad campaigns, social media insights, website analytics and anything else you use to generate leads.

A Customer Relationship Management Tool (CRM) is one of the best ways to track all your marketing efforts in one place and nurture your leads. Engaging with your customers and using remarketing techniques like email campaigns are also highly effective ways to do just that.

Related: Making A CRM Platform Your Sales Team’s Best Friend: The How-To

Lead generation is not an overnight job. It takes time, research, consistency and a willingness to measure efforts regularly. Understanding your audience, creating a buzz around your product or service and putting in the work to keep people engaged are the surest ways to foster sustainable business-to-customer (B2C) relationships for the life of your business.

Most entrepreneurs are barely scratching the surface with AI, missing out on tools that can dramatically boost output and give them a serious competitive edge. This isn’t about basic chatbots or simple content generation — this is about unlocking AI’s hidden power to automate and dominate.

Inside this video, I’m revealing seven under-the-radar AI tools from the “Black Book” — strategies that go way beyond the basics and can transform your business.

What You’ll Learn:

• Website optimization and sales booster: Discover a FREE Google AI tool that audits your website like a pro, identifies conversion-killing weaknesses and provides expert feedback to skyrocket sales. (Plus, learn how to use its data analysis features to triple your results!)

• Deep competitive analysis hack: Uncover the AI search engine that performs DEEP competitive research, revealing hidden market gaps and the biggest revenue opportunities for your business (without the $200/month price tag).

• No-code AI agent builder: Learn how to easily create your own AI agents — without any coding — to automate tasks, make decisions and even learn from interactions, freeing you up to focus on growth.

• Instant presentation generator: See how to turn any blog post, video transcript or outline into a professional, shareable presentation in minutes — saving you hours of tedious work.

• Social media spy tool: Explore the pre-built AI bot that scrapes data from social media platforms, letting you spy on competitors, identify trending content and extract valuable insights (posts, likes, comments).

• Data analysis powerhouse: Uncover the AI tool used by top universities to transform raw data into actionable reports, graphs and insights — perfect for analyzing competitor strategies and optimizing your own.

• The ultimate AI app store: Discover the “Hugging Face” of AI — a massive library of AI apps for everything from voice cloning to sentiment analysis, putting the power of advanced AI at your fingertips.

I’ll walk you through each tool, showing you exactly how to implement these advanced AI strategies, even if you’re not a tech expert. Get ready to unlock a new level of efficiency and competitive advantage.

Download the free “AI Success Kit” (limited time only). And you’ll also get a free chapter from Ben’s brand new book, “The Wolf is at The Door – How to Survive and Thrive in an AI-Driven World.”

Though more than 60% of job-seekers expressed a strong desire to work remotely, according to a ZipRecruiter economic research study, remote employment is becoming less common now than it was at the height of the pandemic.

LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence survey, released earlier this week, shows that the rate of remote work in the U.S. has dropped from 46% of all employees in October 2020 to 26% this February.

Meanwhile, within the same span of time, the number of onsite employees has increased from 39% to 55%, while the percentage of hybrid workers has slightly risen from 12% to 16%.

LinkedIn surveyed more than 400,000 U.S. professionals on its platform from Oct. 5, 2020, to Feb. 21, 2025, to deliver the findings.

Related: ‘Really Hard to Find a Job’: 1.7 Million Job Seekers Have Been Looking for Work for at Least 6 Months

Remote job postings have declined, too. Indeed data showed that in 2024, the portion of remote job postings declined in 46% of all sectors.

The shift from remote to onsite and hybrid work occurs amid a frozen job market for white-collar workers, or professionals who perform desk, managerial or administrative work in an office setting. According to a Harris Poll survey for Bloomberg News released on Friday, the majority of Americans (70%) believe they would have trouble finding a job better than their current one, with the percentage jumping to 80% of Gen Z workers born between 1997 and 2012.

Three in four respondents to the poll said that employers had more leverage in the job market than employees. Nearly half stated that they felt stuck or were falling behind in their current job, indicating a lack of growth opportunities and support at work.

Bloomberg reports that the hiring rate for all workers is 3.4%, one of its lowest points in the past decade, while The Wall Street Journal notes that job openings are down 8.6% year over year. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released this month shows that more Americans than ever, nearly nine million, are working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Related: These Are the Highest-Paying Jobs Best Suited for Introverts, According to a New Report

EY senior economist Lydia Boussour called the U.S. labor market “frozen, but robust” following a January jobs report showing that the U.S. economy added 143,000 jobs in January, below forecasts of 170,000 jobs.

“Business executives continue to rein in hiring but are still holding off on layoffs as they navigate a more uncertain economic and policy environment,” she told Entrepreneur at the time.

As a small-business owner, it’s difficult to stay on top of government mandates. For instance, did you know that millions of companies have been required to file BOI (Beneficial Ownership Information) reports with FinCEN since January 2024?

Even if you received that update, you may not have seen the latest news regarding FinCEN announcing that it’s not issuing fines or penalties for failing to file. But this newest update is only in effect until an interim final rule is issued and new due dates are established.

Take one task off your to-do list for 2025 and make sure you don’t fall victim to these fines with FileForms BOI Report Filing. Like TurboTax for tax filing, FileForms is ready to walk you through the reporting process. Right now, a one-time filing report is just $89 — $90 off the usual price — for a limited time.

Filing a BOI? You’ll need this service.

Unsure if BOI reporting to FinCEN applies to you? As an entrepreneur, it’s likely needed. It’s been mandated for professionals ranging from accountants to business owners to legal experts.

Beneficial owners are those who own or control a significant portion of a company (typically 25 percent or more of the equity or substantial influence over the operations). If this sounds like you, then you likely will need to tackle this new filing. But don’t despair because FileForms will be with you every step of the way.

If you want to ensure you’re filing correctly, FileForms BOI Report Filing is ready to help. This service makes the reporting process straightforward, offering a step-by-step guide.

BOI reporting can take hours if you attempt to file on your own. FileForms is up to date on the reporting requirements and best practices, taking the guess work out of the process on your end and making the entire process take around ten minutes.

This FileForms BOI Reporting Filing is a one-time filing, but if needed, an unlimited filing subscription is available as well.

Act fast and secure your one-time FileForms BOI Report Filing, now just $89 (reg. $179) for a limited time.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

After delivering a keynote to an audience of district managers and C-Suite leaders, several attendees came up to me afterward to talk about how I balance leadership responsibilities with being a parent. Interestingly, it was a group of five men, and their questions prompted me to write this entire article.

“How do your leadership philosophies shape your parenting style?” he asked me.

“It’s simple,” I replied. “The philosophies are the same.”

I shared that as both a leader and a mother, one of my greatest ambitions is to empower the people around me. To me, leadership, whether at home or at work, isn’t just about strategy and execution; it’s about fostering resilience, encouraging critical thinking and nurturing confidence.

Another leader asked, “Can you share some of the things you teach your clients and your kids?”

And this is what I shared.

Related: 5 Leadership Lessons We Could All Learn From My Parenthood Journey

The first is: Embrace mistakes as opportunities to grow

In our home, my husband and I see mistakes as learning moments. We both feel strongly about having children who feel they can run to us when they make a mistake — not run from us. To do this, we make it a point to acknowledge our own mistakes openly, demonstrating to our kids that this is a safe space and showing that taking accountability is a strength, not a weakness.

This lesson extends beyond the home — whether in the workplace or the boardroom, creating a culture where people can learn from mistakes leads to stronger, more innovative teams. I’ll never forget when a teacher told me our oldest daughter walked into school and proudly shouted to the entire class, “My mom makes a lot of mistakes!”

The second is: Be curious before you point fingers

A pivotal moment in my parenting journey was when a member of my team posted to LinkedIn announcing the launch of a new product. The only problem with that move was that we weren’t planning on announcing the product quite yet. We had a marketing plan in place, social media posts in the works and a landing page that wasn’t live. I was in the kitchen when my phone started buzzing with all of these alerts congratulating me, and I had no idea. Then I saw the post. And my stomach dropped. I just kept saying, “Oh no… oh no…” My daughter was next to me and saw I was upset.

“Are you going to fire him?” She asked.

“No,” I said. “I need to figure out what he was thinking when he made this decision so we can talk about it.”

Before bedtime, my daughter could see I wasn’t myself.

“What are you going to do?” she asked me.

“I’m going to try to find the silver lining.”

She asked what that meant, and I explained it.

“When you find the silver lining, if you find something else that’s good on top of that, will that be your gold lining?” she inquired.

“You know what? It should be,” I said. “Once I find the silver lining, I’m going to try the gold lining for sure.”

She then asked, “Did all of the people who know you see this post?”

“No,” I said.

“Then the silver lining can be that you still have a lot of people to tell.”

And she fell asleep.

In parenting, when my kids make a mistake, we don’t ask, “Why did you do that?!” We choose to take a step back and ask, “What were you thinking?” In work scenarios, I’ve found approaching situations with curiosity before blame leads to constructive conversations and deeper understanding. My team and I grew stronger from this misstep, and my daughter got to see what it looks like to take a step back and understand a mistake before making any major decisions. She also learned the valuable skill of finding the good in things — even when that feels hard.

Related: 4 Ways Parenting and Leadership Go Hand-in-Hand

The third is: Prioritize effort over outcome

Success isn’t defined solely by results — it’s about the dedication and perseverance behind them. When my daughter proudly presents a project she has worked on, I focus on the effort.

“I can see how much thought you put into this. Tell me about the colors you chose!”

This principle applies in leadership as well. By recognizing and celebrating the process, not just the final achievement, we cultivate a mindset of continuous learning and resilience in both our children and our teams.

Leading the way

“Thank you,” the dads said. “I took a lot of really good notes today.”

“Thank you!” I replied. “That’s one of the highest compliments you can get as a speaker.”

As you go about your home life and work life, remember that empowering future leaders starts with small, intentional actions and thoughtful conversations. I think in both scenarios, it’s easier to explode at people or shut them down, but no matter where you are, building an environment that values learning, curiosity and effort helps shape confident and capable individuals.

Related: 3 Ways Your Parenting Skills Can Improve Your Leadership Skills