April 2025

It’s not unusual for entrepreneurs to run high on energy, and I’m no exception. I’ve been pulling 60- to 70-hour weeks for decades, and I’d like to think I’m no worse for wear. But, like many business leaders, I’ve also seen my energy levels plummet following intensive projects. After going full-tilt for weeks in preparation for our IPO, for example, I was genuinely surprised by how worn out I felt — and how much downtime I needed to recover.

That moment changed the way I think about productivity. Entrepreneurs love to talk about time management — optimizing schedules to squeeze more hours out of the day — but what I learned is that time isn’t the real constraint. Energy is. You can meticulously plan your calendar, but if you don’t have the energy to execute, none of it matters.

Arianna Huffington learned this the hard way when she famously collapsed from exhaustion, breaking her cheekbone in the process. Countless founders have run themselves into the ground, thinking that working harder was the answer — until they hit a wall. And with workplace burnout skyrocketing, we’re in what some have called a human energy crisis.

The good news? Energy management is a learned skill, and when you master it, you don’t just avoid burnout — you unlock higher levels of productivity, creativity and resilience.

Here are four approaches I recommend to keep your energy levels high, and your business thriving.

Related: How to Let Go of Unnecessary Tasks and Focus on What Matters

1. Pinpoint your energy vampires (and boosters)

It’s no secret that low energy can put a serious damper on productivity. Fatigue costs employers an estimated $136 billion annually. But leaders who understand how to manage their own — and harness their teams’ — energy can significantly increase their capacity to get things done.

Energy management often goes hand in hand with time management, but it’s not the same thing. Keeping your energy high also requires understanding exactly what drains it and what replenishes it. If you’re not sure, a great place to start is by tracking your daily activities.

For me, the biggest drain isn’t busyness or overscheduling, it’s conflict in work relationships. The stress it causes literally keeps me up at night, particularly how one bad relationship can balloon into a mass energy vampire. On the flipside, good relationships can be huge energy boosters, and studies have shown that leaders who prioritize relationship building have teams that are more productive, enthusiastic and loyal.

2. Reclaim energy from draining tasks and people

You may not be able to avoid everything that drains you, but you can find ways to manage problem areas. For me, that means investing in improving the situation. I’ve seen many entrepreneurs cut and run when things get tough, but I believe it’s worth the effort to make something right.

Here’s an example: when a relationship with a team member is going great, I am quick to assume the best intentions. But if it’s not going well, I’ll often assume the worst. Changing this requires that I step back and re-process their communication by imagining how I’d react if it came from someone else. It’s an easy hack to shift my perspective into a more positive frame, and it helps me clear up my biases and repair the relationship.

Frankly, we all need to own our part rather than applying labels like ‘energy vampire’ that put the blame on the other person. If showing up as your best doesn’t work, then it may be time to end the relationship.

Whatever you do, don’t wait for a catastrophic moment to take action. Consider offsetting energy drains with things that replenish you. For me, it’s carving out time for the basics — lifestyle habits like sleep, nutrition, exercise and family time — and creating a work environment optimized for a flow state. I’ve realized that minimizing interruptions and taking breaks is essential for sustaining my energy levels through deep work — and I think a lot of people could benefit from this, too.

Related: Don’t Let These 8 Common Business Expenses Drain Your Profits

3. If you can’t optimize an energy drain, find a workaround (it might just be acceptance)

We all have to do things we don’t enjoy at work, and sometimes there’s no way around it. You might be tempted to cut out the fatiguing task altogether, but consider this: if you could optimize the situation, could it become an energy booster?

I figured out, for example, that I can make conference networking more enjoyable (and less of a drain for an introvert) if I focus on creating quality connections with two or three people, rather than striving to shake as many hands as possible.

Small optimizations can go a long way toward turning a negative into a positive, but I find it also helps to accept the fact that not every task will be an energy booster — and that’s okay.

Related:

4. Lead with energy: set expectations and keep momentum high

In your role as a team leader, you can model healthy energy management, but you can also set clear goals and expectations that eliminate energy-wasting arguments. That means being clear on who’s making a decision and when, keeping the time for debate to a reasonable minimum, documenting the decision, and ensuring that after it’s made, it doesn’t devolve into relitigation. Failing on any of these points can be a massive energy drain for your team.

Being crystal clear on the big picture helps keep spirits high when the days are long. Plus, identifying an end point and celebration markers can have a big impact on keeping motivation and morale high (and can actually lead to more success). I witness it every year during our Black Friday sales campaign, when every department comes together to root for success and watch our dashboard hit its targets.

If you take away one thing, let it be this: managing your energy isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. The most productive entrepreneurs aren’t just masters of their calendars, they’re masters of their stamina and their teams’. Before you pack another hour into your already full day, ask yourself: Am I managing my time, or am I managing my energy?

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Colorado-based entrepreneurs Boone Whiteside, 29, and Ben Medalie, 28. Whiteside and Medalie are the co-founders of Highland, a haircare brand that started as a DIY passion project in a Denver apartment and has grown into an eight-figure business in three years. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Highland. Boone Whiteside, left, and Ben Medalie, right.}
When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
Whiteside: When Ben and I became best friends during our junior year at CU Boulder, one of the things that brought us close was our shared aspiration of building our own thing — in not walking a 9-5 path working on someone else’s dream. This shared passion wouldn’t manifest until much later, though.

When I first started dreaming of a hair product company that went beyond styling one’s hair with toxic sh*t, I was working at an ecommerce startup in a marketing and operations role. We were a small team, and the company was struggling hard to establish itself. I learned a ton about problem-solving through the early stages of business, but I had one foot out the door, pulling me toward my calling of being my own entrepreneur.

Related: This 17-Year-Old High School Student Has a $20,000-a-Month Side Hustle — and It All Started With a Skill He Learned in Class

Ben was working at a payroll tech company in an analyst role, but the actual role changed so much during his tenure because he hated doing the same thing every day. Juggling sales, learning to code, handling risk analysis, dabbling in marketing and growth… his managers were constantly breathing down his neck to “JUST FOCUS” on “his main role.” Neither of us were happy with those career trajectories.

Sick of the archaic legacy brands that dominated the hair styling space with cheap, chemical-based formulations and wasteful packaging, and unsuccessful in my search for a brand that was disrupting the industry, I stumbled into an idea that would solve my own consumer need. I had a hunch this problem would resonate with people like me.

What were some of the first steps you took to get the side hustle off the ground?
Whiteside: The first steps were hitting the Google machine (BAI, or before AI) to uncover naturally occurring, plant-based ingredients that could replace plastic, endocrine-disrupting formulas. Without a lick of chemistry or cooking experience to my name, I began ordering waxes, clays, oils and other botanical ingredients and started mixing them on my stovetop.

Fortunately I’ve always been a weirdo, so I was weird enough to start putting these failed concoctions into my hair, weird enough to make all of my friends do the same and give me feedback and weird enough to be unbothered by my roommate, Ben telling me how weird I am… soon to become a hair weirdo himself.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Highland}

Are there any free or paid resources that have been especially helpful for you in starting and running this business?
Medalie: Some tech standouts include: Klaviyo for email marketing, Shopify (and all its awesome plugins) to power our site, Triple Whale for attribution metrics, Amped (now Mailchimp) for lead capture, Adobe Premiere for content creation and finally Figma for making the non-designer look and feel like Rembrandt.

Whiteside: Ben covered most of the paid ones. For free, the best resource we tapped into was our polite persistence in demanding help from other business builders. People generally want to help, but you can’t be afraid to ask. We recently grabbed coffee with Justin Gold, founder of Justin’s, the peanut butter brand, and he summed it up nicely: “Be unreasonable.” This mentality has been instrumental in building an unbelievably helpful network of people who have helped us build the Highland strategy from the ground up and in avoiding mistakes other founders have made. So go be unreasonable — just be polite about it.

Related: This Couple Started a Side Hustle to Improve a ‘Terribly Made’ Bathroom Essential. Now the Business Earns More Than $3 Million a Year.

If you could go back in your business journey and change one process or approach, what would it be, and how do you wish you’d done it differently?
Whiteside: I think Highland gets high marks for doing this early, but I wish we’d done it even earlier. Get very serious about your unit economics from day one. Learn what your gross margins are. Make a plan for how you will bring down COGs over time, and know that every penny counts. Get serious about your finances, and figure out how and when you can make your business profitable. For now, the days of raising capital and figuring out how to become profitable later are gone, as are most of the businesses that took this route.

One of the most magical days of Highland was when the June 2023 books closed, and we had $113 in profit. We’d figured out how to make the business self-sustaining, and that meant our runway was unlimited. Become profitable, don’t die, then figure out how to effectively scale.

But also, no regrets. The journey was the journey, and it shaped us. Let yours shape you.

When it comes to this specific business, what is something you’ve found particularly challenging and/or surprising that people who get into this type of work should be prepared for, but likely aren’t?
Medalie: Formulations (of any kind, but especially in beauty) that are truly natural are incredibly hard to get right. We learned fast why all of those who came before us cut the corners they did, and we were offered the same formulation shortcuts that ensure consistency and so-called “performance.”

In being adamant that our products would be different, we ran into issues left and right. Our ingredients are volatile and misbehaving; early batches would vary greatly, and they had a much shorter shelf life than the products we were going up against. Multiple times, we lost thousands of units to failed batches, went out of stock as a result and questioned if it was all worth it. In the end, we broke through on the other side of this challenge, now redefining what innovation is possible within “better for you, better for the planet” formulation.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Highland}

Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong? How did you fix it?
Whiteside: We’ve never raised a multi-million-dollar round — at least, not yet — but that hasn’t spared us from facing serious cash flow challenges. Right after our friends and family round, we hit a rough patch. We were burning about $10,000 a month as we worked toward reducing our losses and slowly ramped up our marketing spend. Still, we weren’t too worried. We had three months of runway and what felt like the perfect investor lined up — someone ready to write the full check and bring industry expertise and mentorship that Ben and I had only ever hoped for. We were set. Until, suddenly, we weren’t.

The process dragged on for months. Our bank account drained. The deal ultimately fell through. We had to stop paying ourselves, cut expenses to the bone, delay growth plans and strain relationships with our manufacturing partners. It was the first time we really confronted the possibility of losing the company, and it was a gut check.

Medalie: So, we scrambled. We raised less capital than we had planned, but we made it work. We kept a confident front for our investors, got lean and stayed scrappy. Looking back, it was one of the best things that could’ve happened. It forced us to prove our path to becoming cash-flow positive and helped us retain more ownership. But it was a hard-earned lesson: Fundraising isn’t real until the money hits the bank. And no matter how promising a deal looks, you can’t build a business on potential alone.

Related: After Losing $5 Million Overnight at Age 25, He Started a Business on Track for $50 Million. Here’s the ‘Lightbulb Moment’ That Made It Happen.

How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? How much did the side hustle earn? What does growth and revenue look like now?
Whitside and Medalie: We didn’t start earning consistent monthly revenue ($10,000-$20,000 per month) until mid-2023. The side hustle kicked off all the way back in 2021, when Ben and I were making the batches of our Glacial Clay Pomade in our KitchenAid mixer, packing the units by hand and selling them on our Shopify storefront and to a couple of salons and barbershops. The side hustle probably generated an average of $1,000-$3,000 a month between 2021 and 2023.

Now in 2025, after launching our third-ever SKU, we hit our first million-dollar month and have been profitable for nearly two years straight. It’s not a race. Become an overnight success in five to 10 years.

What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Medalie: Honestly, hot take… getting to do this whole thing with the people we love and cherish most in life. People always warn against getting into business with best friends or family, but this part has been the most fun. Every single day is different, and getting to see yourself and friends grow, thrive and even fail in front of each other is incredibly powerful and motivating.

Whiteside: What I enjoy most is waking up each day with a purpose, solving challenging problems with my best friend and co-founder and choosing our own adventure in every facet of what we do. Being your own boss is NOT an overrated part of being an entrepreneur. It’s incredibly hard, but it’s also the best.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Highland}

What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
Whiteside: Getting started is often the hardest part, but if someone has, I’d offer a piece of advice from my dear friend and Shopbop founder, Bob Lamey: “Beware the incoming call.” It means to be laser-focused on what you think the roadmap is for your business and striving toward those goals with intention. Many emails, phone calls, pitches and day-to-day tasks become a distraction from what you know you need to be working on.

This doesn’t mean to ignore opportunities as they arise — it is a call to define your vision and hold yourself accountable in working to bring it to life. You know what you need to be doing; don’t let the noise distract you.

The majority of Windows users still haven’t upgraded to Windows 11, according to TechSpot. With the clock ticking on support for Windows 10, if you keep waiting to upgrade, you may be stuck without security fixes, technical assistance, or free software updates if you don’t upgrade to Windows 11 Pro ahead of the discontinuation.

To ease the blow, we’ve been selling Windows 11 Pro license keys at an all-time low price of $14.97, but today, April 27, is the last day to get this price (reg. $199).

Up your workday productivity

The changes to Windows 11 Pro include a seamless interface to help you tackle your to-do list more conveniently. Support for biometric login, encrypted authentication, and advanced antivirus defenses are just a few of the features that boost your online security. And improved voice typing and a better search experience aim to save you time and increase your productivity.

With Windows 11 Pro, Microsoft Teams and Widgets capabilities are all built-in. There’s also the addition of Copilot, Windows 11’s AI-powered assistant that answers your questions and serves as your own (unpaid!) personal assistant.

Since you’re always working so hard, you need to make sure you’re playing hard, too. Windows 11 Pro offers unprecedented gaming advantages, with DirectX 12 Ultimate providing incredible graphics so you can play your favorite games in all their splendor.

Before purchasing, make sure this license is the right fit for your computer. This particular Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license requires your device to be running Windows 10 or higher, with a processor of 1GHz or faster, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage or larger.

Why this deal is worth it

Upgrading to Windows 11 Pro isn’t just about staying current, it’s about working smarter. With new productivity tools like Snap Layouts for better multitasking, deeper Teams integration for faster communication, and support for multiple virtual desktops, this upgrade can genuinely streamline your day. If your PC is still running Windows 10, you’re not just behind on security, you’re missing out on built-in features designed to help you move faster, focus better, and get more done.

Get Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for just $14.97 through April 27 at 11:59 p.m. PT with no coupon needed.

Microsoft Windows 11 Pro – $14.97

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StackSocial prices subject to change.

AI tools are rapidly changing how businesses across industries operate. Whether you’re a business owner juggling a dozen responsibilities, a marketer trying to stay relevant, or a team lead looking for an edge, mastering tools like ChatGPT and automation is an essential skill.

The ChatGPT & Automation E-Degree Bundle can seriously help you amp up that skillset, and it’s only $29.99 (reg. $790).

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Courses cover a range of in-demand topics like data visualization, AI-enhanced creativity, automated marketing, chatbot design, and business process optimization. Instead of general concepts, the content focuses on how to apply AI in everyday work scenarios. Think: writing better proposals, creating engaging content faster, or building smart workflows that free up your time.

And if you’ve ever been overwhelmed by the number of new tools out there, this bundle is a curated introduction to what’s actually useful and how to use it without drowning in tutorials or tech jargon. It’s beginner-friendly, available 24/7, and optimized for desktop or mobile.

You’ll also walk away with a Certificate of Completion, which is great for your resume, portfolio, or just letting clients know you’re not winging it.

Why this deal is worth it

At just $29.99, you’re getting lifetime access to a course bundle originally priced at $790. That’s a serious return on investment for professionals who want to future-proof their skills and stay ahead of the curve. With practical lessons, expert instruction, and no subscriptions or surprise fees, this deal delivers real value for anyone ready to embrace the AI-powered workplace. It’s not just about learning how to use AI; it’s about using it to work smarter.

It’s only $29.99 to get the ChatGPT and Automation E-Degree.

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StackSocial prices subject to change.

Consumer spending is one of the most important metrics for any industry — yet all too often, businesses fail to track it effectively. But understanding how your target audience is spending their money and why can be critical for your business planning and activities.

Tracking consumer spending habits can provide a wide range of critical insights that will enable you to increase your own profit margins and ensure that your brand is positioned to best appeal to its audience.

Related: How to Grow Your Business When Customer Behaviors Change

1. Understand customer preferences

At the foundational level, tracking consumer spending is essential if you wish to have a better understanding of your customers’ shopping preferences and behaviors. What is the average number of items customers purchase in a single transaction? What is the average value of each order? What products are bought together?

Consistently analyzing these and other spending trends among your customer base can help you identify more effective strategies for marketing, such as offering complementary products.

Amazon is perhaps the ultimate case study of leveraging consumer spending habits to fully understand — and capitalize on — customer preferences. The company’s algorithms notably draw on data points like the products a customer has purchased and rated, and then use that information to recommend similar or complementary products. By leveraging data to gain an in-depth understanding of customer preferences, Amazon has become the retail giant it is today.

2. Personalize your marketing

Tracking customer spending habits can be a valuable resource for personalizing your marketing efforts. The rise of generative AI, in particular, is believed to have significant potential in streamlining marketing personalization for brands big and small — but for this personalization to be effective, you need to supply it with good data.

Tracking individual customer spending helps you identify what types of products a particular customer likes and which related products or services would be the most appealing to them. According to McKinsey, 71% of customers now expect personalized interactions based on this type of information — and even more telling, 76% are disappointed when they don’t get it.

Tracking spending provides the information you need to ensure personalized messaging hits the mark. In fact, 70% of companies with an advanced personalization strategy report a return on investment of 200% or more.

Related: 3 Ways to Personalize Your Marketing for Higher Engagement

3. Predict and prepare for market trends

In addition to improving marketing outcomes on an individual level, looking at the big picture of customer spending can also help your business prepare for and adapt to wider market trends.

For example, according to research conducted by Faye, the top travel trends that Americans plan to spend money on in 2025 include solo traveling (26%), “low season” or off-peak travel (24%), destination “dupes” that are similar to but cheaper than larger tourist destinations (20%) and sports tourism (15%).

For Faye, as a travel-related business, understanding how customers plan to spend money regarding their travel plans can provide critical information that can then influence marketing plans and timed service offerings. In any industry, becoming more aware of wider market trends is critical for staying ahead of competitors and avoiding major downturns.

4. Improve your products or services

Customer feedback is one of the best ways that businesses can get insights into how their target audience views their products or services. While customers may sometimes be willing to write a review or contact customer support, their spending data can also give your team crucial insights into the appeal and viability of a particular product or service.

For example, you might discover that a product that was once a major sales driver for your brand has seen significant declines over time. This data doesn’t exist in a vacuum — it could stem from seasonal or macroeconomic trends. But it could also serve as an indicator that your competitors have begun to offer something more appealing.

Tracking customer spending can become an important first step in identifying when there is a need (or opportunity) to make adjustments and improvements to your existing products and services.

5. Improve retention rates

It’s one of the most commonly repeated data points in all of business — increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase your company’s profits by 25% to 95%. This is largely because it can cost five to 25 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer.

Each of the previously mentioned reasons to track customer spending will have a significant impact on your customer retention rates. By better understanding overarching preferences, personalizing marketing to individual customers, gaining insights into market trends and optimizing your products, you create an environment where customers are more likely to stick with you in the long run.

As you make the most of spending insights to optimize your operations and increase your efficiency, you’ll improve customer satisfaction and retention, which will also give your profit margin a much-needed boost.

Related: 3 Pillars of Client Retention Every Brand Needs to Implement

There are many ways you can gain greater insights into customer spending habits. Whether leveraging readily available data from your own website and sales platforms, conducting surveys of your target audience or utilizing third-party data, you can gain the necessary insights to adjust your operations and become more profitable. Making the necessary investments to better track and analyze customer spending will more than pay for itself in the long run.

The biggest cost for businesses is labor, which accounts for around 70% of a company’s budget, according to data from business banking specialist North One. If you’re running everything alone or with a skeleton staff, then you need every tool that can help you save the most time, and the Adam Elements CASA HUB 360 8-in-1 Aluminum Foldable USB-C Hub Stand for laptops and tablets definitely qualifies. Best of all, you can get it for just $99.99, a 22% discount off the regular retail price of $129.

Entrepreneurs typically put in long hours, and this lightweight, all-aluminum stand is designed for optimal viewing and comfort, making it both functional and convenient. This allows you to work comfortably and productively for as long as you need to. The adjustable mechanism makes setup easy, requiring no tools. Rubber pads enhance the design to provide stability, along with braided cables and strengthened connectors, ensuring long-lasting durability.

An L-shaped nylon braided USB-C to USB-C cable is included to connect your device to the stand. You can also connect additional devices to the stand via its several integrated ports. These include two 3.2 Gen 1 5 Gbps USB-A ports, plus a USB-C Host port; a USB-C PD 3.0 port with 100W, 20V, and 5A; an HDMI port that supports up to 4K at 60Hz; and a 3.5mm audio jack for 32-bit stereo input and output at up to 384 kHz. Additional storage options include an SD 3.0 port and a microSD 3.0 port.

The wide range of adjustments means you’ll never worry about neck strain again while working or watching videos. In addition to work and entertainment, you’ll find this versatile stand ideal for writing, cooking, painting, and more. At 2″ x 11″ x 8″ and weighing just 36 oz, you can easily move it around to wherever it’s most convenient for you.

The Casa Hub works seamlessly with iPads and MacBook models M1, M2, M3, and M4. It’s also compatible with Windows and Chrome OS. A three-year manufacturer’s warranty covers the stand.

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StackSocial prices subject to change.

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We live in a time of answers. Type your question into a search engine or AI chatbot and you’ll receive an instant, logical, high-quality response. But there is one question no technology can answer for you: What is the meaning of life? And the answer, oddly enough, is simple. I once saw it on a postcard in a café in Kathmandu: The meaning of life is whatever you want it to be.

Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to unpacking the science of meaning — trying to understand where it truly comes from. Is it flow state? Well-being? Habits? Goals? Failure? Resilience? Fun?

What do we regret most?

Maybe a better starting point is to ask: What compromises meaning?

In the book Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, palliative nurse Bronnie Ware captures the reflections of people in their final days — when the truth can no longer be hidden. The top regrets:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.

Regret, I believe, lives at one end of an emotional spectrum. At the other end is fulfillment — the sense that life is meaningful, resonant and coherent. Regret is pain from the past, reheated for the present. To reduce it, can we outsource work, courage and happiness to AI?

Related: 9 Tips for Finding Your Life Purpose

Will abundance lead to emptiness?

Can AI and robotics automate the mundane so that hard work becomes optional? Elon Musk thinks so. He predicts that our future challenge won’t be productivity, but human fulfillment. Without adversity and longing, will an abundance of everything drive us into emotional collapse — or worse, trap us in echo chambers of narcissistic pleasure, the stars of our own digital realities?

Or will we do what humans always do — manufacture challenge, strive, compete and dream big? Even if we’re monkeys in glass cages, under the watchful gaze of a superintelligent “god” that punishes misbehavior, rewards effort and medicates us with algorithmic precision? Well, many of us do like rules and boundaries. Would I prefer an AI overlord to flawed human governance? Maybe. Could AI usher in a great reset, reallocating wealth and distributing resources more efficiently? Quite possibly. Will it honor merit — or invite, even compel, everyone to contribute meaningfully? (I asked ChatGPT, which answered that compulsion would only be required if we face existential threats.)

What makes the journey worthwhile?

Whatever the future holds, the central challenge remains: making the journey feel worthwhile. Ensuring what we do matters — if only to ourselves.

For much of history, religion, kings, nations, communities and families prescribed our values. There was no need to ask deep questions, especially when the primary value was survival. But now we must ask questions like: What is important to me? What brings me fulfillment? What legacy do I want to leave?

Purpose can feel grandiose, but values are ingrained — often diffracted beneath the surface of our awareness, revealed in moments of stress or joy. When you clarify your values, you can begin to create your own spiritual practice.

How do you put values into practice?

Love fitness? Stretch at dawn, run at sunset and build your life around it. Value kindness? Serve others, act with compassion and volunteer weekly. Value peace? Meditate, teach yoga and campaign to end wars.

Living in alignment with your values creates meaning, especially when it’s hard. We need resistance. We need positive stress. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing how far we’ve come: how we now handle pressure better than a younger version of ourselves, or how we’ve restored balance after chaos and disruption.

In my workshops, I ask people what they’re most proud of achieving in the past year. The answers are never about ease. They’re about resilience — overcoming illness, supporting loved ones, pushing through stretch goals or simply refusing to give up.

What is the hero’s journey today?

We don’t have to be perfect. But we do need to try, fail and try again. That’s the hero’s journey: leave the comfort zone, gather allies, gain skills, get knocked down and rise again. We conquer the dragon and return home changed. That journey is what creates meaning.

AI can’t give us that. It can be a tool, but we still need mastery, growth, community and courage.

Yes, some may get left behind — immersed in virtual realities, fed by robots, existing in gamified, plasma dreams. A real-life Matrix. But there’s another possibility: We define our values, and AI helps us find challenges where we can still make a difference. It suggests allies. It nudges us toward purpose. And like any good guide, it lets us stumble.

Related: Want to Find Your Purpose? Stop Looking for It. Start Living With It.

Where do we begin?

We do something worthwhile — whether it’s achieving a goal, being of service or loving someone.

We work less. We live authentically. We stay connected to friends. We speak our truth. We allow happiness, but it starts with values. Because if you don’t choose them consciously, you’ll absorb them unconsciously, whether it’s from consumer culture, influencers or convenience — and you’ll feel empty.

So, unearth your values. Practice them. Build resilience. Dream big. Aim for the stars — and with the help of superintelligence, you just might get there.

Microsoft released a 56-second ad for the Surface laptop on January 30, and no one realized that it was partially AI-generated until Microsoft disclosed it on Wednesday.

The ad shows different people typing away on a Surface laptop in various locations. It emphasizes the Surface laptop’s standout features, like its touchscreen and battery life.

In the close to three months since the ad’s release, no one has picked up on its AI-generated roots, per The Verge. The ad has over 46,000 views on YouTube, and none of the top comments suspect that the ad was partly AI-generated.

According to a Microsoft Design blog post released Wednesday, Microsoft employees used generative AI tools to cut down the time and expense required to create the ad, putting it together in just a month.

“With a small budget and a tiny amount of time, we were able to accomplish in a month what would have traditionally required exponentially more resources,” Brian Townsend, visual designer on Microsoft’s Windows + Devices Visual Design team, stated in the blog post. “We probably saved 90% of the time and cost it would typically take.”

Related: Apple Issues Apology for iPad Pro ‘Crush!’ Ad and Pulls It from TV — Here’s Why

The team started the process by using unspecified AI tools to create a script, storyboards, and a pitch deck. AI helped expedite the process, allowing the team to get the materials ready in a matter of days instead of weeks.

The team then told an unnamed AI chatbot what they were looking for in the ad. They went through “thousands” of additional prompts to refine the AI output.

Because AI still has trouble generating details like human motion, the team decided to use some human-created shots to fill in the weaknesses of AI-generated shots. They determined that humans had to manually capture shots with “intricate movement,” like closeups of hands typing on keyboards, while AI generated quick cuts or shots with limited motion.

AI allowed the team to display different backgrounds in the ad without having to travel to the location. However, the team acknowledged in the blog post that from time to time, AI tools would experience hallucinations or generate inaccurate responses. When hallucinations arose, the team would manually fix “any unnatural elements” that popped up.

“However, as with all things created using AI, the occasional AI hallucination would rear its head,” the blog post stated. “To combat this, the team employed a blend of AI and traditional video production tools to meticulously compose frames and correct any unnatural elements.”

Related: Google Pulls Gemini AI Olympics Commercial After Backlash

Microsoft emphasized in the blog post that AI democratizes filmmaking and allows anyone to create their own ad or video.

“All it takes is imagination and the curiosity to explore the myriad of tools available,” the blog post reads.

Microsoft did not specify which AI tools they used to generate the ad, though the company’s own tool, Microsoft Copilot, is capable of creating a script, footage, and a video project from a single prompt.

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