September 2026

When people think of the industries shaping the future of business, property management probably isn’t at the top of the list. Most entrepreneurs likely don’t think they have much to learn from the housing industry. But after two decades spent building software for landlords and property managers, I’ve found that it is one of the best places to learn what it really takes to build a lasting company. 

Housing is one of the most regulated, fragmented and emotionally charged industries in the U.S. Businesses are navigating an ever-changing mix of federal, state and local regulations, shifting economic conditions, evolving customer expectations and emerging technologies — all while earning and maintaining the trust of customers making high-stakes financial decisions every day. Success requires more than a great product or an innovative idea. It demands resilience, adaptability and a long-term commitment to solving real problems.

Building a business in this environment has taught me lessons that extend far beyond property management. Whether you’re building a SaaS platform, launching a consumer brand or growing a professional services firm, today’s business landscape is defined by one constant: change. The lessons I’ve learned from this industry are surprisingly universal. They’re not just about rental housing — they’re about building a business that can adapt, endure and grow no matter what comes next. 

1. Innovation matters, but adaptability matters more

Startup culture celebrates innovation — breakthrough ideas, disruptive products and companies that set out to transform an industry. Innovation is essential to entrepreneurship; it’s often what starts companies, creates opportunity and gets attention. But innovation alone doesn’t build a company that lasts — adaptability does. 

My software company wasn’t built around one disruptive idea. It was built on firsthand experience with a real-world problem I knew others were struggling with too. Over time, we’ve continued to evolve our software alongside our customers’ changing needs. We haven’t sustained growth for two decades because we were always the first to innovate — we’ve grown because we prioritize listening, learning and adapting. 

Property management, like many industries, is defined by constant change. We can’t always predict what’s coming next, but we can control how we respond when challenges arise. The Covid-19 pandemic was a powerful reminder that adaptability matters. Businesses across industries were forced to rethink how they operated, served customers and delivered value. For us, that meant rapidly developing new features and providing resources to help customers navigate changing rental regulations. The companies that adjusted quickly were best positioned to navigate uncertainty, while those unable to change struggled to keep pace.

On a less revolutionary scale, the same principle applies to day-to-day operations. Changing compliance requirements, evolving cybersecurity expectations and shifting customer needs all require the same approach: listen closely, understand the challenge and adapt. 

The lesson is simple: Innovation may help you get noticed, but adaptability helps you endure. The companies that build lasting advantages aren’t the ones constantly chasing the next big thing — they’re the ones continuing to evolve as the world around them changes.

2. Understanding your customers is a competitive advantage

It’s easy to get caught up in what competitors are doing or what new technology makes possible. I’ve learned that the best products are built by understanding the problems customers actually face. 

It starts with customer empathy. You have to understand the challenges your customers navigate, the decisions they make every day and the obstacles standing in their way. Building the right solution requires understanding their reality. Our product has evolved by staying close to our customers and responding to their changing needs. Every feature, improvement and update is guided by a simple principle: Does this create value for our customers? How can we make their jobs easier, more efficient and more successful? 

The key is to create meaningful opportunities for customers to share input — through one-on-one conversations, support interactions, surveys, social channels or other touchpoints where customers can share ideas, challenges and frustrations. The most important step? Turning those insights into action. Even as CEO, I regularly connect with customers who share feedback, suggest improvements and help us identify opportunities to build a better product. That’s market research you can’t get anywhere else.

In complex industries, the strongest competitive advantage comes from knowing your customers better than anyone else. Your customers should shape your strategy. 

3. Long-term trust outlasts short-term growth 

Markets fluctuate, regulations change and technology evolves. The companies that last are those that build relationships and credibility strong enough to weather the shifts.

In the housing industry, trust is everything. Property managers are responsible for people’s homes, financial transactions and sensitive personal information. In the grand scheme of things, the longest feature list or the most impressive marketing claims matters less than having a trusted partner they can rely on every day. 

Building trust takes time. It comes from consistently delivering value, supporting customers when new challenges arise and continuing to invest in their success long after the initial sale. A company can win new customers with a great product, but it retains them through reliability, transparency and results. This long-term vision has helped us build lasting relationships with our customers — many of our software clients have been users for years and years, a reflection of the trust we’ve earned by continuing to support their businesses through the ups and downs. 

Short-term growth can create momentum, but long-term trust creates staying power. When your customers have confidence in your team and your product, they’re more likely to continue growing with you through whatever comes next. 

Complexity creates opportunities

America’s housing challenges aren’t going away anytime soon, and neither is uncertainty in business. Successful entrepreneurs view complexity as an opportunity instead of an obstacle. The industries with the most complicated challenges are often the ones with the greatest need for thoughtful solutions and businesses ready to invest the time to understand them. 

Building a business in a complex industry has taught me that lasting success comes from embracing complexity. It requires staying curious, adapting when circumstances change and continuing to solve meaningful problems for the people you serve.

When people think of the industries shaping the future of business, property management probably isn’t at the top of the list. Most entrepreneurs likely don’t think they have much to learn from the housing industry. But after two decades spent building software for landlords and property managers, I’ve found that it is one of the best places to learn what it really takes to build a lasting company. 

Housing is one of the most regulated, fragmented and emotionally charged industries in the U.S. Businesses are navigating an ever-changing mix of federal, state and local regulations, shifting economic conditions, evolving customer expectations and emerging technologies — all while earning and maintaining the trust of customers making high-stakes financial decisions every day. Success requires more than a great product or an innovative idea. It demands resilience, adaptability and a long-term commitment to solving real problems.

Building a business in this environment has taught me lessons that extend far beyond property management. Whether you’re building a SaaS platform, launching a consumer brand or growing a professional services firm, today’s business landscape is defined by one constant: change. The lessons I’ve learned from this industry are surprisingly universal. They’re not just about rental housing — they’re about building a business that can adapt, endure and grow no matter what comes next. 

Growing up, Oskar Flodstrom always loved to draw and create. But he didn’t think being an artist was a realistic profession. He considered becoming an engineer, hoping it might give him a creative outlet. 

“But then I found out what an engineer actually was, and it was kind of sad to me,” Flodstrom, 23 years old and based in Los Angeles, California, tells Entrepreneur. 

The pandemic interrupted Flodstrom’s senior year of high school. He decided against college; he didn’t have the money for it or think it would help him with his artistic pursuits. Inspired by the U.S. record producer and DJ then known as Kenny Beats, Flodstrom started making music. 

“There is something to be said about being a self-starter and having that courage,” Flodstrom says. “It doesn’t give you the immediate return on investment. People kind of think you’re an idiot for a bit.” 

Teaching swim lessons to pay the bills, making art on the side

Flodstrom taught swim lessons to pay the bills and worked on his art on the side.

One day, with little extra cash to decorate his apartment, he was scrolling Facebook Marketplace for free items. That’s when he stumbled upon a clear, rounded acrylic base — and thought he could use it to craft a piece of furniture. 

Flodstrom didn’t have a car at the time, so he took a bus to pick up the piece and lugged it back to his apartment. 

“ I didn’t touch it for months, honestly,” Flodstrom recalls. “It was just sitting there. I did kind of know I wanted to make it [in the shape of] a pill bottle. I was going to either use wood or something else for the top. I finally just used foam.” 

Bringing the Facebook Marketplace find to life: the pill bottle

He brought the pill bottle piece to life earlier this year. It didn’t cost much. The base from Facebook Marketplace was free, after all, and Flodstrom estimates he spent about $120 all-in for the rest of the materials: foam, paint, paper for the label. Flodstrom thinks his unassuming presence helped, too. 

“The Staples guy was pretty cool,” he says. “I don’t think I come off very presumptuous, so I think sometimes people want to help me, maybe. I got that label for like 12 bucks, printed big. Usually it’s supposed to be $30.”  

Flodstrom considered putting the pill bottle table in the background of one of his music videos. But then he got the idea to capture the creative process on video and post it on social media, where he goes by Erik Oskr.

Flodstrom had posted videos featuring his work in the past, even selling a chair reminiscent of an avocado for about $500. He’d found the base for free outside, noting a lot of people in LA leave items on the street when they move.

The pill bottle table went viral and led to a collaboration

The pill bottle was an instant hit. Flodstrom’s video went viral this past June and caught the attention of NO LOGO, a company that works with founders and brands to manufacture products without building factories of their own. 

Flodstrom took NO LOGO up on its offer to make a free sample based on his photos and measurements. They agreed to change the material for the lid to make it more stable. The company also helped him set up a Shopify website. 

When NO LOGO delivered the sample, Flodstrom was in between places, living out of a car he’d purchased. A company representative asked him if he’d do an interview about his creation, and he agreed, not thinking much would come of it.

He still didn’t know how well the pill bottle side table would sell. He hoped it might make enough money for him to get into an apartment. 

A slow start — then 1 million views per minute and 200 sales

With the sample made and ready to sell, Flodstrom began work on more videos to promote the piece on social media.

The process got off to a shaky start. Instagram AI flagged the video because the pill bottle had an “Adderall” label. Flodstrom thought day one would be big, netting at least 10 to 15 sales. Thirty-six hours later, only a couple of sales had trickled in.

“I was kind of panicking because the first couple of videos hadn’t done well,” he recalls. 

Flodstrom decided to get creative again and record a different use case for the pill bottle side table — as a laundry basket. 

“ I made that little video of me using it as a hamper,” Flodstrom says, “and I’ve still never seen Instagram do that, one million views per hour for like 10 hours straight. It was crazy. 200 sales. Still, I don’t think I’ve fully grasped it.” 

The pill bottle piece grossed $150,000 in sales in 2 weeks

The product grossed $150,000 in sales within two weeks. Sales have remained relatively steady, typically between $1,500 and $4,000 a day, depending on ad push. Of that, NO LOGO takes a low cut to cover manufacturing costs, Flodstrom says. He estimates his margin is about five times larger. 

Now, Flodstrom looks forward to developing more products and scaling his business.

The young entrepreneur hasn’t changed his lifestyle drastically just yet, though at the time of this interview, he was days away from moving into his new place. Flodstrom wants to make sure his recent success isn’t just a flash in the pan. 

“ I don’t really want to be known as the pill bottle guy,” Flodstrom says. “I wanted that to be the start, but I have a bunch of cool ideas. A giant razor blade mirror that’s going to come out soon. A lava lamp out of a Sprite bottle. I just made a bong out of a milk jug.”

Additionally, he’s trying to keep the momentum up on social media, across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, and take advantage of affiliate opportunities. He also intends to experiment with streaming, which has the potential to drive more revenue. 

Flodstrom doesn’t claim to have everything figured out, but he’s doing his best to build a real business around his art, which he’s never done before. 

“ I don’t feel like an artistic genius by any means,” Flodstrom says. “I still want to prove myself in that realm. So I don’t even know what to say most of the time. It feels like a fantasy. A daydream.”

Growing up, Oskar Flodstrom always loved to draw and create. But he didn’t think being an artist was a realistic profession. He considered becoming an engineer, hoping it might give him a creative outlet. 

“But then I found out what an engineer actually was, and it was kind of sad to me,” Flodstrom, 23 years old and based in Los Angeles, California, tells Entrepreneur. 

The pandemic interrupted Flodstrom’s senior year of high school. He decided against college; he didn’t have the money for it or think it would help him with his artistic pursuits. Inspired by the U.S. record producer and DJ then known as Kenny Beats, Flodstrom started making music. 

The media requests started arriving before we had answers.

Employees wanted to know where we stood. Reporters wanted a statement. Advocacy groups demanded clarity. Every hour that passed without a response seemed to create another headline waiting to be written.

This was 2017, and the country was reeling from the violence surrounding the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. As attention turned to the president’s response, pressure quickly spread beyond Washington. Companies whose CEOs served on the president’s business advisory councils suddenly found themselves under intense scrutiny.

At the time, I was leading communications for a CEO who sat on one of those councils. Almost overnight, our company became part of a national conversation we hadn’t anticipated.

Inside the company, every draft seemed to answer one question while creating another. If we spoke, what would it mean for our relationship with an administration that played an enormous role in our business? If we stayed silent, what would our employees conclude? Every revision tried to satisfy one more audience, account for one more risk and anticipate one more reaction. With every edit, the language became more polished and somehow less certain.

That’s when I realized something that has shaped the way I think about leadership ever since. The hardest part of a crisis isn’t finding the right words. It’s discovering whether you’ve already decided what you believe.

The organizations that moved decisively weren’t necessarily facing easier circumstances than we were. They had simply wrestled with those questions before the cameras showed up. Their values had already been translated into decisions. Conviction isn’t built in the spotlight. The spotlight reveals what’s already there.

Conviction starts before the crisis

One of the biggest misconceptions in leadership is that trust comes from getting everyone to agree with you. Stakeholders disagree with leaders every day. They disagree with strategy, hiring decisions, political positions, acquisitions and product launches. Yet many of those same leaders retain credibility because people understand what they stand for.

The organizations that struggle are usually the ones trying to decide what they believe while the world is waiting for an answer.

That’s why I encourage leadership teams to pressure-test their values before they’re forced to defend them. During an executive offsite or strategy session, identify a handful of realistic scenarios that could put your organization under public pressure. Then resist the temptation to begin with messaging.

Instead, ask a more fundamental question: What do we actually believe? If the answers around the table aren’t consistent, you’ve identified work that needs to happen long before a crisis arrives.

Silence is still a decision

Many leaders assume that saying nothing allows them to avoid risk.

Sometimes that’s true. But when an issue directly affects your employees, your customers or your business, silence becomes a message in itself. In the absence of a clear position, people will interpret your silence through the lens of what they already believe about your organization, or they’ll allow someone else to define your position for you.

Before deciding not to engage, ask yourself three questions:

• Does this issue affect our people?
• Does it touch one of the values we’ve publicly claimed?
• If someone else defines our position for us, are we comfortable living with that version?

If the answer to any of those questions gives you pause, silence deserves just as much scrutiny as a public statement.

Consistency matters more than agreement

I’ve watched organizations navigate remarkably similar controversies with dramatically different outcomes. In many cases, the deciding factor wasn’t the position they took. It was the consistency with which they took it.

Stakeholders are quick to spot patterns. When leaders communicate one set of values internally and another externally, people notice. When values appear in recruiting materials but disappear during difficult moments, people notice that too. If decisions seem to shift based on the audience or the news cycle, credibility begins to erode.

One exercise I recommend is looking backward instead of forward. Pull together the last five or 10 significant decisions your organization has made and read them as if you were seeing them for the first time. Do they tell a coherent story about what your organization stands for?

Your stakeholders have already answered that question. This exercise gives leadership the opportunity to compare its answer with theirs.

Help people understand how you think

One lesson I’ve learned over the years is that leaders spend tremendous energy communicating decisions and far less explaining how they reached them.

When people understand the principles that guide your decisions in ordinary moments, they’re much more likely to trust your judgment in extraordinary ones. They may disagree with your conclusion, but they’ll have confidence that it came from careful thought rather than convenience.

Don’t wait until a crisis to explain how your organization makes decisions. Build that habit into your everyday leadership. When employees understand the reasoning behind promotions, strategic shifts, difficult tradeoffs and even disappointing news, they’re learning something much bigger than the outcome. They’re learning how you think.

Trust is built one decision at a time. Every difficult conversation, every promotion, every public statement and every moment where your values are tested becomes another data point people use to decide who you are as a leader.

Every leader hopes they won’t be defined by a single difficult moment. In my experience, those moments don’t define us nearly as much as they reveal us. Long before the headlines appear, before the media calls begin and before the pressure mounts, we’ve already been deciding what kind of leaders we’re going to be. The crisis gives everyone else the chance to see it.

The media requests started arriving before we had answers.

Employees wanted to know where we stood. Reporters wanted a statement. Advocacy groups demanded clarity. Every hour that passed without a response seemed to create another headline waiting to be written.

This was 2017, and the country was reeling from the violence surrounding the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. As attention turned to the president’s response, pressure quickly spread beyond Washington. Companies whose CEOs served on the president’s business advisory councils suddenly found themselves under intense scrutiny.

Every business owner has a plan — or at least they think they do. They know where the important documents are stored, which child has expressed interest in the business, and what they want to happen if they retire, become disabled or pass away. The problem is that knowing isn’t the same thing as documenting, and when a crisis occurs, your family doesn’t get access to what’s in your head. They get access only to what’s in writing. 

I’ve talked with thousands of business owners and their advisors throughout my career, and one truth recurs: families rarely struggle because they lack love for one another. They struggle because they lack clarity. When a founder’s wishes are undocumented, spouses are left making impossible decisions. Children are left interpreting intentions. Advisors are forced to fill in gaps. At the very moment a family should focus on supporting one another, they are instead trying to answer questions that should have been resolved years earlier. 

The result is often confusion, conflict and damaged relationships. That’s why one of the greatest gifts a business owner can leave their family isn’t wealth — it’s clarity. A written legacy plan provides direction during moments of uncertainty and helps families move forward with confidence rather than guesswork. 

Half of owners will experience one of the 5Ds 

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is assuming they have more time. They tell themselves they’ll create a plan after the next acquisition, after the next growth phase, or after they finally slow down. The reality is that life doesn’t always cooperate with those timelines. 

At the Exit Planning Institute® (EPI), we often talk about the 5Ds: Death, Disability, Divorce, Distress, and Disagreement. These events account for roughly half of all business exits and often arrive unexpectedly. They don’t care whether your succession plan is complete, whether your children are prepared, or whether you’ve had the difficult conversations. They simply arrive, forcing families to make major decisions under emotional and financial pressure. 

That’s why planning cannot wait until you’re approaching retirement. A legacy plan is not an end-of-career exercise. It’s a business and family responsibility that should begin now. When one of the 5Ds occurs, your family shouldn’t have to become detectives searching for clues about what you would have wanted. The answers should already exist in a written plan that reflects your values, intentions, and priorities. 

Start with values, not assets 

We have a warehouse that is a multi-use space, and it offers a helpful example of how legacy can be understood. 

In one area, we have a museum of sorts: memorabilia from generations of Snider family entrepreneurs. We’ve also documented 21 years of EPI. Additionally, we have a classic car collection that my son loves. 

Since I own a business with my dad and entrepreneurship is so central to my family’s history, from the outside, you might think that my children will simply inherit everything. But my son knows better. He knows that legacy must be earned. So, I made a deal with him.  

I told him that if he cleans that warehouse every time I think it needs cleaning, he’ll get the stuff inside it one day. Perhaps the lesson was too easily learned: the next week, without me asking, I found him in there during hour three of mopping the floors. 

He doesn’t take for granted that wealth is inherited. 

When families begin talking about legacy, they often start in the wrong place. The conversation immediately turns to ownership percentages, inheritance structures, and financial distributions. While those issues are important, they are not foundational. 

The first conversation should be about values. 

What does your family stand for? What principles guided the creation of your business and wealth? What responsibilities come with ownership? What kind of impact do you hope future generations will make? 

Families who establish clarity around values make better decisions when a crisis hits. They understand that wealth is not simply a resource to consume but a tool to create opportunity, strengthen relationships, and contribute to something larger than themselves. Wealth without context often creates entitlement. Wealth paired with values creates stewardship. 

This is why many successful family enterprises create written family values statements. These documents become a decision-making framework for future generations, helping them navigate opportunities and challenges long after the founder is gone. Markets will change, and circumstances will evolve. But clearly articulated values provide a compass that remains remarkably durable over time. 

Create a cadence of family conversations 

A single family meeting is not a family governance system. Yet many business owners treat communication as a one-time event rather than an ongoing process. 

The strongest family enterprises I’ve encountered establish a regular cadence of conversations long before ownership transitions become necessary. Some families gather quarterly. Others hold annual family meetings. The schedule itself matters less than the commitment to creating space for honest dialogue.  

These conversations shouldn’t focus exclusively on succession planning. They should explore family values, business performance, ownership responsibilities, philanthropic goals and long-term aspirations. Family members need opportunities to ask questions, voice concerns, and better understand both the opportunities and responsibilities associated with family wealth. 

Perhaps most importantly, these meetings help build trust. When communication occurs consistently over time, difficult decisions become easier because family members understand how those decisions are being made. Transparency creates confidence. Silence creates assumptions. And assumptions have a way of turning into conflict. 

I’ve often said that silence destroys more family wealth than taxes ever will. Families that communicate effectively don’t eliminate disagreement, but they create a framework for navigating it constructively. That may be one of the most valuable forms of legacy planning a family can undertake. 

A documented plan, in three areas 

At EPI, we recommend that business owners plan in three areas: personal, financial, and business. 

And even if there aren’t any children working in the business, a family should still have a window into all three of those areas. 

According to our research in the 2023 State of Owner Readiness Report, 39% of business owners plan to transfer the ownership of their business to their family. 

However, only 53% of families are aware of both the managerial and ownership transition plans. Worse yet, 27% of owners have fewer than one family meeting a year regarding the business, or none at all. 

That means a business built with the intention of selling to a third party or transitioning via an Employee Stock Ownership Plan may transition to family instead in a time of crisis. Or the opposite. Either way, a written plan, based on family conversations, is key. 

Here’s what must be included, at the very least: 

• Family Values and Legacy Statement: The principles that informed decision-making and the impact you hope your family will have. 

• Personal Financial Plan: Documented will, estate plan, and inheritance instructions, with account numbers and locations. 

• Business Transition Plan: How will the business transition, and why? Include a succession plan that accounts for whether each family member will experience ownership, leadership, or inheritance.  

These items should not be surprising to anyone in the family. Issues of fairness vs. equality should be worked out in advance and widely known. In addition, those plans should be revisited as family dynamics change, family members develop new skills and interests in the business, and wealth changes. 

Most families will have robust discussions during these planning sessions, if not outright disagreements. You may benefit from having an advisor lead these proceedings, acting as an independent third party that has the company’s and family’s best interests at heart. 

Every business owner has a plan — or at least they think they do. They know where the important documents are stored, which child has expressed interest in the business, and what they want to happen if they retire, become disabled or pass away. The problem is that knowing isn’t the same thing as documenting, and when a crisis occurs, your family doesn’t get access to what’s in your head. They get access only to what’s in writing. 

I’ve talked with thousands of business owners and their advisors throughout my career, and one truth recurs: families rarely struggle because they lack love for one another. They struggle because they lack clarity. When a founder’s wishes are undocumented, spouses are left making impossible decisions. Children are left interpreting intentions. Advisors are forced to fill in gaps. At the very moment a family should focus on supporting one another, they are instead trying to answer questions that should have been resolved years earlier. 

The result is often confusion, conflict and damaged relationships. That’s why one of the greatest gifts a business owner can leave their family isn’t wealth — it’s clarity. A written legacy plan provides direction during moments of uncertainty and helps families move forward with confidence rather than guesswork. 

Running a business while traveling sounds great in theory, but I’ve learned that it only works when you build the right systems around it.

Over the years, I’ve managed my businesses from different countries, sometimes while traveling with my family and sometimes while combining a trip with meetings or events.

Along the way, I’ve figured out what actually helps me stay productive without turning every vacation into another week at the office. Here are the strategies that work best for me.

1. Use AI agents to keep your business running

I’ve started using AI agents more actively in my businesses, and one of the biggest benefits I’ve noticed is how much easier they make it to step away from routine work. I can use them to organize information, monitor workflows, handle repetitive administrative tasks and deal with smaller processes that previously required someone’s constant attention. That becomes particularly valuable when I’m traveling, because I don’t want to open my laptop every hour just to check that everything is moving.

According to EverMind, most UK and Ireland C-suite leaders using AI agents report saving between three and 10 hours per week. For me, that’s the real value of AI agents: not replacing my involvement in the business, but reducing the number of small things that require it. When I only have a few hours to work during a trip, I’d rather spend them making decisions, talking to key people and solving problems that actually need me.

2. Create marketing content with AI while traveling

I’ve found that one of the harder things to maintain while traveling is a consistent flow of marketing content, particularly video. I don’t want every trip to involve filming equipment, long editing sessions or coordinating with a creative team just to keep my businesses visible online.

This is another area where I’ve started relying more on AI. I can take an idea, script or content I already have and use AI tools to turn it into something usable without being tied to my normal setup. According to PixVerse, 63% of video marketers have already used AI video tools to help create or edit marketing videos. I can use an AI video generator, for example, to experiment with social clips, promotional videos or different creative concepts directly from my laptop.

I still want the ideas and marketing strategy to come from me and my team, but AI makes the production side much more flexible — which is exactly what I need when I’m working from a hotel, airport or somewhere halfway around the world.

3. Use AI to improve and repurpose written content

The same approach works with written content. When I’m traveling, I rarely want to spend several hours staring at a blank document when I already have articles, posts and other material that can be turned into something new. I use AI to help me repurpose a longer article into LinkedIn posts, email content or shorter pieces, as well as to edit and improve drafts I’ve already written.

This is becoming a practical way for marketers to get more from the content they already have. According to WriterNinja, 39% of marketers using AI for content creation already use it to repurpose marketing content.

For me, AI solves another practical problem as well: English isn’t my native language. One of the easiest ways for me to create something while traveling is simply to press the microphone button in the AI assistant I’m using and talk through my thoughts as they come. Instead of worrying about perfect English or sentence structure, I can focus on the idea and let AI help me shape it into clear, polished writing afterward. It makes creating and repurposing content on the road much faster while still keeping the ideas and perspective genuinely mine.

4. Build a team that can handle hands-on work without you

One of the businesses I manage while traveling is surprisingly physical. I’ve built a network of microsites that generate leads for local construction services, from bathroom renovations and window installation to flooring, basement cleanouts and other hands-on jobs. When a lead comes in, my customer service team qualifies the customer and passes the job down to the local construction crews I work with, so I can focus on lead generation, marketing and managing the operation from wherever I happen to be.

I started exploring this model after watching the cost of skilled manual work rise in Bulgaria, where I live. While more people are attracted to careers that can be done behind a laptop, there is still plenty of work that simply cannot be moved online — you can’t renovate a bathroom, install a floor or replace a window over Zoom. The shortage of people willing and qualified to do this work can create an interesting opportunity for entrepreneurs who know how to connect local demand with reliable crews.

The same pressure is visible in the U.S. According to R&J, the construction industry needs to attract an estimated 349,000 net new workers in 2026 just to meet demand for construction services, with another 456,000 needed in 2027. The lesson I’ve learned is that running a business remotely doesn’t mean the business itself has to be digital. If you can build the systems for generating leads, handling customers and dispatching dependable teams, even a very hands-on local service business can be managed while you travel.

5. Keep a professional workspace without being tied to one location

Not every great vacation destination is a great place to work. I’ve traveled to places where finding a quiet, professional environment was surprisingly difficult. The few coffee shops available might be packed with families and screaming children or groups having beers in the middle of the day — not exactly the environment you want when you need three hours of uninterrupted work.

That’s why I now consider the availability of reliable coworking spaces when choosing where to stay. Coffee shops are fine for answering emails or handling a few simple tasks, but when I need to concentrate, take calls or make important decisions, I want somewhere that actually feels like an office.

According to Winston Tower, 45% of workers rate their productivity as excellent in a coworking environment, compared with just 27% when working from home. You can imagine that working from a hotel lobby, hotel room or coffee shop would be even worse than working from home. A little research before booking your destination can therefore make a big difference: Check the coworking spaces and flexible offices nearby, their opening hours and reviews.

Traveling gives you the freedom to work from almost anywhere, but that doesn’t mean you should try to work from everywhere. Just make sure there are a few good coworking spaces nearby.

6. Optimize your transportation when traveling

One thing I’ve learned from traveling is that the best way to get around changes completely from one country to another. In parts of Southeast Asia, for example, private drivers can be affordable enough that I hire the same driver for most or even all of my stay. He meets me at the airport, takes me to the hotel and is available when I need to move around, saving me the hassle of constantly arranging transportation. In Spain, I do almost the opposite: high-speed trains make traveling between major cities so convenient that a car often makes little sense.

New York taught me that timing matters just as much as the type of transportation you choose. Traffic can change dramatically depending on the hour, so I try to plan meetings and transfers around peak periods rather than automatically jumping into a car. According to BCS, during New York’s evening rush hour, driving 10 kilometers takes about 31 minutes, with an average speed of only around 19 km/h.

When I travel, I research not only whether trains, public transit, taxis or private drivers make the most sense, but also when I should use them. Saving 30 minutes here and an hour there adds up quickly when you’re trying to run a business at the same time.

7. Choose destinations that help you recharge

The way I travel has changed as I’ve gotten older and taken on more responsibility as a business owner. In my twenties, a good trip might have meant nightlife, parties and trying to squeeze as much as possible into every day. Today, I’m much more interested in coming back from a trip feeling better than when I left.

Especially during the winter, I like destinations with good spas and wellness facilities, where I can structure my day around three things: focused work first, a workout at the gym afterward and finally, recovery in a warm pool, sauna or spa. Apparently, I’m not alone in making that shift. According to Carbon Wellness, 56% of travelers say their number one motivation for leisure travel is to rest and recharge.

When you’re running a business while traveling, that balance becomes even more valuable. I can still get several productive hours of work done, but instead of ending the day exhausted after sightseeing and nightlife, I use the rest of the trip to exercise, recover and actually switch off.

8. Turn downtime into learning time

I used to listen to far more podcasts than I do today, with my listening probably peaking during the Covid years. Now I’m more selective about both what I listen to and when. Traveling creates some of the best opportunities: If I’m driving alone, doing a relatively easy workout or simply have an hour to myself while my family is somewhere else in the hotel or spa, I’ll often put on a business or entrepreneurship podcast. I use that time to hear how other founders think, discover new strategies or get a different perspective on something I’m already working on.

And this habit is common among other entrepreneurs: According to Castos, 43% of business owners and executives surveyed said podcasts were their primary source of information. I don’t feel the need to consume business content every free minute anymore, but podcasts are an easy way to turn some of the natural downtime that comes with traveling into useful learning without opening a laptop.

9. Let data tell you when your business needs attention

One of the biggest mistakes I can make while traveling is constantly checking whether everything is okay back home. I don’t want to spend half my trip messaging my team to ask how many leads came in, how campaigns are performing or whether sales are moving in the right direction. Instead, I prefer having the important numbers available in dashboards so I can quickly see what is happening and only step in when something actually needs my attention.

According to Magnific, 76% of firms say having sales data available in real time is very or extremely important for decision-making and business performance. For businesses with larger volumes of constantly changing information, real-time data infrastructure can take this further, allowing tools and dashboards to update as new activity happens rather than relying on yesterday’s reports. The better visibility I have into my businesses, the less I need to micromanage them — and that becomes especially valuable when I’m traveling.

10. Combine business travel with leisure

Whenever possible, I try to give my trips more than one purpose. If there’s an interesting conference in Spain, Thailand or Vietnam, for example, that can become the starting point for a longer trip. I’ll attend the event, arrange meetings with clients or business partners who happen to be in the region, and then leave several days for actually enjoying the destination.

I also sometimes do the reverse: Once I know where I want to travel, I look through my network to see whether there are clients, partners or worthwhile industry events nearby. This approach has become common enough to have its own name — “bleisure” travel.

According to Nobl Travel, 36% of global travelers plan to extend a business trip to enjoy leisure time before or after their work obligations. For me, combining the two makes the economics of traveling better, but more importantly, it turns a single trip into an opportunity to strengthen business relationships while still having a real vacation.

11. Create a “minimum viable workday”

When I’m traveling, I don’t try to recreate my normal workday in a hotel room, but I’ve also learned that completely switching off isn’t always realistic when you run a business. According to Tailor Brands, 85% of small business owners continue working in some capacity while on vacation. I’m usually part of that majority. I create what I call a “minimum viable workday.”

I identify the two or three things that genuinely need me and focus only on those. The key is cutting everything around the actual work. According to WPX, employees spend around 60% of their time on “work about work,” such as communicating about tasks, searching for information and chasing updates. When I’m traveling, I try to eliminate as much of that as possible. I handle the important decisions, solve anything urgent and then close the laptop — the business keeps moving, but I still get to enjoy the trip.

Running a business while traveling is ultimately about finding the right balance. You need systems, a reliable team and technology that keep things moving without your constant involvement, but you also need the discipline to know when to close the laptop. I’ve learned to focus on the work that genuinely needs me, automate or delegate the rest, and plan my trips in ways that make both working and relaxing easier. Do that well, and travel doesn’t have to interrupt your business — it can simply become part of how you run it.

Let me tell you a quick story.

There was a new town in Norway back in the 1990s, built by a rich oligarch who decided to create a new settlement and live there. For about five years after the town was created, houses there kept catching fire. Firefighters would come, put out the fire, go home and come back the next time. They even hired more firefighters and extinguished more fires.

Now, this was a cold town. Fires breaking out every other day made no sense. Everyone was asking, “How do we fight this fire better?” Eventually, one of the residents got sharp and asked a different question: “Why does this fire keep breaking out, and how do we stop it from happening in the first place?”

What they found: The contractor who built the town had used a thin, highly flammable material above the bricks for soundproofing in every room, including the kitchens. Every kitchen in every house was basically a fire waiting to happen. The fix was simple: Break into every kitchen and remove that layer. They also installed a device in every home that alerted the fire station the moment smoke was detected. We know it today as a smoke alarm.

After fixing the root cause, the fire outbreaks stopped entirely.

That’s systemization thinking. The firefighters were working hard and thought they were killing it. But working hard inside a system that could be fixed is not efficient. A sharp person sees the difference.

That story is fictional, but you get the point.

So what is systemization thinking?

Systemization thinking is the habit of seeing things as systems instead of isolated events.

Instead of asking, “How do I solve this problem right now?” You ask, “What process, structure or mechanism can solve this repeatedly, with less effort, every time it comes up?”

A normal thinker looks at slow customer support, for example, and says, “Let’s reply faster.” A systemization thinker asks why support is slow in the first place, then builds templates, routing rules and automations so that speed becomes automatic and doesn’t depend on anyone trying harder.

1. Everything is a process

Every repeated outcome, good or bad, comes from a process, whether you designed it intentionally or not. Employees always late? Customers always confused? Same bugs recurring? Probably a systems issue.

The instinct most people have is to blame the people. The sharper instinct is to ask what system produced this outcome, and then fix the system.

2. Stop solving the same problem three times

If you’ve fixed something manually three times, that’s a sign it needs a permanent solution, not a fourth manual fix. Don’t rely on memory or on someone being available.

I spoke with someone who used to work at McDonald’s. On his first day, he was already making burgers, even though he’d never cooked before. McDonald’s doesn’t rely on talented burger makers. It relies on a system and a simple checklist. The system produces the burger, not the person’s natural ability. That’s systemization.

3. Repeatability beats genius

A genius one-time result is less valuable than an average result that happens reliably every time.

A few years ago, we were living somewhere far from the city, and finding a maid was nearly impossible. No public transport reached there, and no maid was going to take an Uber to work every day. Person after person came for the interview, saw how far it was and never came back.

Then one woman came in, started the job and kept coming. She’d gone on a Facebook group full of drivers and negotiated a deal: same driver, morning and evening, fixed monthly rate. She identified the problem, built a repeatable solution and executed it. We kept her. That kind of thinking is what separates someone who survives a difficult situation from someone who just complains about it.

4. Think in inputs → process → outputs

When something goes wrong, don’t just look at the outcome. Trace it back. Bad app reviews? Instead of “users are angry,” ask: What inputs caused this? Where did the process fail? What metrics would have revealed this earlier? Find where the system broke, not just where the pain showed up.

5. Don’t be busy, be efficient

Busy means you’re always doing something. Efficient means what you’re doing actually produces the best result in the least amount of time.

For example, if I had about 940 software programs to review, I could write a document on how they should be reviewed and assign someone to review them one by one. The person would be extremely busy. Instead, that same document could become an AI skill that does the review 100x faster, and the assigned person would only review the shortlist manually for quality assurance.

Busy feels productive, but if at the end of the day the output doesn’t match the hours, the hours don’t matter. A lot of what people call “hard work” is really just an inefficient system that nobody has bothered to fix. “Work smarter, not harder” is a cliché because it’s true.

The hard part of systemization

People think once you build a system, the problem is solved. Not every time. A system itself has to be maintained, enforced, monitored and improved. SOPs are the most common form of systemization, and they’re genuinely difficult to keep alive. You’ll write a really good one and feel good about it, then six months later, realize nobody is following it, nobody has updated it and the team has quietly gone back to doing things the way they want.

A badly designed or poorly enforced system can create more work than no system at all. And a system that lives only in a document nobody opens is not a system; it’s just writing.

This is why culture matters more than any individual system. Systemization requires proactivity: People have to see a problem before it becomes a crisis, care enough to build a lasting solution and resist the easier option of just handling it manually again.

The summary

Stop solving the same problem more than three times. When something keeps breaking, fix the system, not just the symptom. Build processes that work without a single point of failure. And remember, a system is only as good as the culture that maintains it.

Let me tell you a quick story.

There was a new town in Norway back in the 1990s, built by a rich oligarch who decided to create a new settlement and live there. For about five years after the town was created, houses there kept catching fire. Firefighters would come, put out the fire, go home and come back the next time. They even hired more firefighters and extinguished more fires.

Now, this was a cold town. Fires breaking out every other day made no sense. Everyone was asking, “How do we fight this fire better?” Eventually, one of the residents got sharp and asked a different question: “Why does this fire keep breaking out, and how do we stop it from happening in the first place?”

My parents’ generation largely grew up believing you found a good company, worked hard, moved up the ladder and, if everything went according to plan, stayed there.

Today, people change jobs for better pay, flexibility, titles and that elusive thing every company claims to have — great culture. At the same time, we’ve raised a generation accustomed to immediacy. Order something today, and it might arrive today. Want to watch something? Stream it. Need an answer? Ask AI.

That changes consumers, employees and entrepreneurs.

Some of the old startup playbook focused on things that looked good: elaborate offices, cool perks, corporate initiatives and, for a while, apparently putting a slide in the middle of the office. None of that compensates for getting the fundamentals wrong.

Building a company now requires constantly questioning what those fundamentals should be.

1. Use AI to compete with AI

A good friend owns a marketing company and is an incredible graphic designer. Her custom, hand-drawn work is head and shoulders above the generic AI material we’re seeing everywhere. But she’s competing with something that can produce an image in seconds.

Customers may recognize that her work is better and still ask: Why should I pay more and wait longer when AI can give me something good enough right now?

My question to her was: Why not offer both?

Let AI handle what doesn’t require her talent, then apply her creativity and judgment where they actually change the result. If AI turns a 20-hour job into a two-hour job, eventually the economics change too. Someone will deliver faster or cheaper.

You’re not just competing with AI. You’re competing with the entrepreneur who learns to use it better than you.

2. Rethink the job before you hire for it

Another friend is an accounting director at a Fortune 500 company. Her company is reconsidering certain titles, degree requirements and experience expectations while simultaneously pushing employees to use AI. AI utilization is even becoming part of how performance is evaluated.

Think about where that could lead. An accountant may spend less time producing information and more time validating it, finding errors and deciding what it means.

Eventually, AI may become good at some of that too. We don’t know. That’s why entrepreneurs shouldn’t automatically recreate yesterday’s job descriptions.

Before hiring, ask what actually needs to be accomplished. Can technology do part of it? Can you eliminate the process altogether? Can one exceptional employee with the right technology accomplish what once required three?

Design the job around the work that exists today.

3. Build a multigenerational company — and listen to it

A 22-year-old employee grew up in a completely different consumer environment than someone who’s 55. They may instinctively understand platforms, expectations and behaviors an older executive had to learn.

The 55-year-old may have lived through recessions, hiring booms, layoffs, management trends and supposedly revolutionary technologies that disappeared five years later.

Hire both. More importantly, listen to both.

Your youngest employee may recognize where customers are going before you do. Your most experienced employee may recognize a mistake because they’ve already watched somebody make it.

Different generations aren’t just a workforce statistic. Their collective experience can be a competitive advantage.

4. Recognize that “instant” has changed your customer

Customers no longer compare your service only to your direct competitors. Amazon delivers the same day. Netflix streams instantly. Uber shows exactly where your driver is. AI answers a question in seconds.

Then a company says, “We’ll get back to you in three to five business days.” That increasingly feels ridiculous.

Not every business needs to operate at Amazon speed, and speed doesn’t excuse bad work. But immediacy has changed what good service feels like.

Friction is now part of your product whether you intended it to be or not.

5. Don’t assume AI can’t replace you

There’s a comforting prediction about AI: Great designers, accountants, lawyers, marketers and engineers aren’t going anywhere.

Maybe. I wouldn’t bet my company on it.

Instead of defending the old way of doing something, ask what happens if technology becomes dramatically better at it. Could you build the technology that makes an old process obsolete instead of being the person defending that process?

Then ask a harder question: What should technology replace?

We assume removing human involvement makes something less human. But technology’s purpose shouldn’t be preserving jobs or eliminating them. It should be improving outcomes for people.

Entrepreneurs should be willing to follow that question wherever it leads.

6. Invest in what technology makes more valuable

If practically anyone can generate an article, advertisement, logo or marketing campaign in minutes, simply producing something competent isn’t much of an advantage.

So what remains scarce? Trust. Relationships. Reputation. Judgment. Taste. Community. Original ideas. Exceptional service.

And human connection.

In a world filled with automated interactions and synthetic content, genuine relationships may become more valuable.

Don’t only ask what AI commoditizes. Ask what becomes more valuable because everything else has been commoditized.

7. Think for yourself

“We’ve always done it this way” has always been dangerous in business. But calling yourself a “disruptor,” “innovator” or “cutting-edge” isn’t particularly meaningful anymore either.

Maybe thinking for yourself is disruptive enough. Do you need an office? Does that position require a degree? Does the customer care about that feature? Does this meeting need to happen? Does a human need to perform that task?

And keep asking.

The opportunity isn’t to build the company someone taught you to build and sprinkle AI on top. It’s to reconsider what the company itself should look like.

It might have 100 employees. It might have 10. It might automate something competitors still do manually while investing heavily in people somewhere everyone else is automating. The answer isn’t always more AI.

Every generation of entrepreneurs inherits rules from the generation before it. The smartest ones figure out which are still worth following.

My parents’ generation largely grew up believing you found a good company, worked hard, moved up the ladder and, if everything went according to plan, stayed there.

Today, people change jobs for better pay, flexibility, titles and that elusive thing every company claims to have — great culture. At the same time, we’ve raised a generation accustomed to immediacy. Order something today, and it might arrive today. Want to watch something? Stream it. Need an answer? Ask AI.

That changes consumers, employees and entrepreneurs.

As the side hustle era continues, AI keeps adding to the number of lucrative opportunities available. 

Nearly 70% of Gen Z side-hustlers said they consider AI the go-to resource when they need help in work, according to a recent report from Samsung. 

So it’s perhaps not surprising that many people who want to earn money on the side leverage AI from the jump — even charging for jobs that hinge on the technology. 

But which AI side hustles come with the best payout? NetCredit analyzed publicly available freelancer rates on Fiverr, filtering for a 24-hour delivery time, to find out. 

Three AI side hustles tied for the highest-paying title. AI spokesperson videos, which feature digital avatars delivering scripts on camera, bring in a $100 median rate for tasks completed within 24 hours, per the research. 

Side-hustlers offering services related to AI applications or generative AI lessons typically see the same amount.

Side gigs adjacent to ChatGPT applications and AI integrations snagged the fourth and fifth spots, with median rates for 24-hour jobs landing at $87.50 and $62.50, respectively. 

Read on for NetCredit’s full list of the best-paying AI side hustles for a single day of work:

As the side hustle era continues, AI keeps adding to the number of lucrative opportunities available. 

Nearly 70% of Gen Z side-hustlers said they consider AI the go-to resource when they need help in work, according to a recent report from Samsung. 

So it’s perhaps not surprising that many people who want to earn money on the side leverage AI from the jump — even charging for jobs that hinge on the technology. 

But which AI side hustles come with the best payout? NetCredit analyzed publicly available freelancer rates on Fiverr, filtering for a 24-hour delivery time, to find out. 

Three AI side hustles tied for the highest-paying title. AI spokesperson videos, which feature digital avatars delivering scripts on camera, bring in a $100 median rate for tasks completed within 24 hours, per the research. 

Side-hustlers offering services related to AI applications or generative AI lessons typically see the same amount.

Side gigs adjacent to ChatGPT applications and AI integrations snagged the fourth and fifth spots, with median rates for 24-hour jobs landing at $87.50 and $62.50, respectively. 

Read on for NetCredit’s full list of the best-paying AI side hustles for a single day of work:

“Hell is other people,” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in No Exit. Philosopher Kiki Berk examines the phrase in her analysis of Sartre’s view of personal relationships. It does not simply mean that other people are unpleasant or responsible for our unhappiness. It describes what happens when another person looks at us and turns us into an object inside their consciousness.

They interpret our behavior, assign motives to our actions and create a version of us that exists independently of the person we believe ourselves to be. You may be generous and still appear selfish, remain silent and appear weak, or speak confidently and appear arrogant. You can explain yourself, improve your performance and try to correct the judgment, but you can never enter another person’s mind and arrange your image exactly as you wish. Their perception remains outside your control, yet much of your identity may still depend on receiving the right verdict from it.

The identity trap

Jennifer Crocker and Katherine Knight write that self-esteem depends on “what people believe they need to be or do to have worth as a person” in Contingencies of Self-Worth. This is the real danger of labels. Once your worth depends on being a founder, writer or leader, an ordinary setback stops being an event and becomes evidence against who you are.

Anlan Zheng, Brittany Duff, Patrick Vargas and Mike Yao found that people “choose to share things that are self-enhancing” in their research on social-media self-presentation. That habit does not remain online. We begin observing ourselves while we work, travel, learn and build, asking what each activity says about us instead of whether the activity itself matters.

Ryan Holiday’s title Ego Is the Enemy makes the diagnosis explicit, while its publisher describes successful figures as “conquering their own egos.” I agree with the warning more than the title. Ego can support ambition, but it becomes dangerous when the appearance of work replaces the work and recognition becomes more important than knowledge.

Daphna Oyserman writes that “identities are dynamically constructed in context” in her work on identity-based motivation. We are obsessed with nouns rather than verbs. We do not simply want to build; we want to become founders. We do not simply want to write; we want to become writers. We do not simply want to lead; we want to be recognized as leaders. The action is no longer sufficient. It must produce a title, and the title must then be protected.

Once “founder” becomes who you are, a failed product is no longer merely a failed product. It threatens the identity itself. Oyserman explains that identity shapes how people interpret difficulty in the same research. The harder you work to preserve the noun, the easier it becomes to interpret ordinary setbacks as proof that you do not deserve it.

Put the verb first

Richard Ryan and Edward Deci write that “social environments can facilitate or forestall intrinsic motivation” in their foundational paper on self-determination theory. Putting the verb first changes the environment inside your own mind. Building matters more than looking like a founder. Writing matters more than being recognized as a writer.

The noun asks the world for confirmation, whereas the verb returns you to action. When the noun comes first, you build to prove that you are an entrepreneur. When the verb comes first, you build because a problem deserves a solution. One protects an image. The other creates value.

But every verb still needs a subject. Someone builds, writes, teaches and leads. Adam Grant writes that prosocial motivation can promote “high levels of persistence, performance, and productivity” when intrinsic motivation is also high in Does Intrinsic Motivation Fuel the Prosocial Fire? I call that subject the giver: the person who builds because a problem deserves a solution and writes because an idea deserves form.

Why the giver is different

Crocker and Knight call contingencies of self-worth “areas of psychological vulnerability” in their research. A founder needs a company, a writer needs work and a leader needs recognition of the role. Each identity contains a condition that must repeatedly be satisfied. The giver can build today, teach tomorrow and listen the day after without losing the central subject.

Mark Bolino and Adam Grant define prosocial motivation as “the desire to benefit others or expend effort out of concern for others” in their review of prosocial work. That direction makes the giver less sensitive to ego. Instead of asking, “Do I still deserve this title?” the giver asks, “What can I contribute here?” The identity rests less on a category and more on the movement of the action.

The risk of performing generosity

Ryan and Deci describe intrinsic motivation as behavior that is “inherently interesting and enjoyable” in their research. Giving can lose that autonomy when it becomes a performance. You can help to feel indispensable, mentor to be admired or sacrifice so that others feel indebted. You can give while still asking.

The solution is not to abandon the giver identity but to define it carefully. Grant suggests that contribution is more sustainable when the action itself remains meaningful. Before acting, ask whether you are creating value or protecting an identity, whether you would still act if nobody knew and whether the action feels complete without recognition.

Kiki Berk writes that Sartre’s philosophy does not exclude “an ethics of deliverance and salvation” in her discussion of No Exit. You may never control the person you become in somebody else’s mind, but you can stop making that person the place where your work becomes complete. Stop trying to look like a founder. Build. Stop trying to look like a leader, and instead, actually lead. Choose the verb, define the giver carefully and let contribution, instead of recognition, become the center of your mindset.

“Hell is other people,” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in No Exit. Philosopher Kiki Berk examines the phrase in her analysis of Sartre’s view of personal relationships. It does not simply mean that other people are unpleasant or responsible for our unhappiness. It describes what happens when another person looks at us and turns us into an object inside their consciousness.

They interpret our behavior, assign motives to our actions and create a version of us that exists independently of the person we believe ourselves to be. You may be generous and still appear selfish, remain silent and appear weak, or speak confidently and appear arrogant. You can explain yourself, improve your performance and try to correct the judgment, but you can never enter another person’s mind and arrange your image exactly as you wish. Their perception remains outside your control, yet much of your identity may still depend on receiving the right verdict from it.

The identity trap

Jennifer Crocker and Katherine Knight write that self-esteem depends on “what people believe they need to be or do to have worth as a person” in Contingencies of Self-Worth. This is the real danger of labels. Once your worth depends on being a founder, writer or leader, an ordinary setback stops being an event and becomes evidence against who you are.