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When you’re building a startup from scratch, there are two things nobody warns you about enough: one, you’re going to have to sell. And, two, you’re probably going to be terrible at it at first.

I know I was. I didn’t have sales experience when I launched my previous company, Vungle. But we had no sales team, no leads and no brand to fall back on. If I wanted the company to survive, I had to learn to sell anyway.

I can say now, given hindsight, that the process of figuring it out the hard way is what set the foundation for what came later. Within a few years, we had grown to 250 employees across eight offices, with over $400 million in annual revenue. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t done the early sales myself.

Below are sales lessons I learned from those years, plus tactical tips any founder can apply, especially when no one’s answering your messages.

Related: 4 Steps to Becoming a Sales-Focused Founder (and Why It’s Important)

Find ways to show up where your customers already are

In our earliest days, we were trying to get mobile game developers to use Vungle’s ad tech, and cold outreach just wasn’t cutting it.

So we did something unconventional: We started playing the games themselves. Our team would log hours on popular titles just to land on the leaderboards. Once we were ranked, we’d change our usernames to short custom messages like “FromVungle_Please_Call_Us.”

This approach got us into conversations with developers who would’ve ignored us otherwise. In a sea of templated outreach, we stood out by embedding our message in the experience our customers were already having.

Now, I’m not saying that you should gamify your every outreach (unless, maybe, if your users are gamers). What I am suggesting is, if your cold outreach is falling flat, ask yourself: Are you showing up where your users are already engaged? Or are you just sending emails they didn’t ask for?

Stop talking about your product

Founders love talking about their product. That’s understandable given how this product is probably your labor of love. The catch is, in a cold message, your product isn’t the hook — your user’s pain is. For Vungle, one of the best-performing openers was something along the lines of:

“Hi, I saw your app on the charts. We’ve helped other developers boost revenue by 20% without changing the user experience. Worth a quick chat?”

See how we didn’t list our credentials or explain our tech stack? Instead, we led with something our audience cared about: incremental revenue for minimal effort.

If you’re doing cold outreach, assume the person reading your message has no context on who you are and doesn’t care yet. You need to earn that interest.

This matters more than it seems. Per a 2024 Salesforce report, 86% of business buyers are more likely to buy when their goals are understood. That means most early founders are leaving opportunities on the table by focusing their pitch too much on themselves and empathizing with their customers too little.

When you take time to craft your first message without thinking of it from the lens of a sales email, it’s proof you care enough to be relevant. That’s how you earn the right to pitch later.

Related: Give Your Employees The 3-Point Strategy They Need To Drive Sales

Build a repeatable engine first before you hand it off

It’s tempting to hire a salesperson the moment you feel overwhelmed. But hiring too early is one of the biggest mistakes I see founders make.

At Vungle, we didn’t hire a full-time salesperson until we’d already built a repeatable script and could train them on what worked. Until then, we built documentation like we’d build product docs: call flows, objection handling, competitive comparisons, sales enablement materials.

That’s what allowed us to scale sales from $850,000 to $15 million in one year, and then to $56 million the next.

If you don’t do this, you risk churning through sales hires. In that scenario, it’s very tempting to blame it on “bad fit.” In reality, you most likely just didn’t have a system.

How I see it, your biggest responsibility as a founder leading sales is actually NOT closing deals but writing the playbook. Until you’ve closed 10–20 deals yourself and can explain how you did it, you’re not ready to outsource.

Treat your sales outreach like an extension of product (because it is)

Founders often treat sales as something separate from product work. But early-stage selling is one of the fastest ways to refine your product. It shows you what customers actually care about. What they’re confused by. What they’re willing to pay for.

For instance, we thought our value proposition at Vungle was around the speed of integration. But during sales calls, we kept hearing that development teams were worried about crash rates and performance. We shifted our pitch — and later, our product roadmap — around those insights. That realignment made a huge difference in our win rates.

Early customer conversations reveal the “why” behind objections. It’s going to be very validating listening for praise. But resist the temptation. Instead tune in closer for confusion, hesitation and indifference. That’s the true product goldmine.

Related: How to Avoid These Costly Mistakes in Your Startup’s Sales Strategy

Reps > theory

If there’s one truth I’ve seen across every startup I’ve advised or invested in, it’s this: You can’t learn founder-led sales by reading about it. You have to do the reps.

Even as you outgrow founder-led sales, you’ll see that “sales” is actually not a temporary phase. It’s the muscle that helps you discover new markets and opportunities, raise money, recruit talent, and evangelize your mission. The sooner you build it, the more compound interest you’ll get on every part of your company.

All that’s to say: yes, founder-led sales is hard! It’s humbling. But it’s also the best path to real traction. If you’re in the early grind, remember that the best founders likely weren’t naturals either. They just cared and hustled enough to put in the reps

The lavish wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and book author and helicopter pilot, Lauren Sánchez, is expected to take place next week in Venice. Most reports say the event will host 200 guests and last three days, from June 24 to June 26, though the couple has not confirmed.

But Venice residents have been protesting against overcrowding and mass tourism, something that they say is negatively affecting the small (the main island is about 2 square miles) city that receives about 20 million visitors yearly. The overcrowding has become so bad that the city charges a 5 Euro daily entrance fee on some high-season dates. (It’s also not just Venice — in Spain, tourists are being shot with water guns on crowded streets.)

Related: Jeff Bezos’ Neighbors Just Sold Their Land. Here’s How Much It Costs to Live Next to the Amazon Founder.

And now the Bezos-Sánchez wedding is in the crosshairs.

^{People gather to protest against the wedding of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez in Venice on June 13, 2025. ANDREA PATTARO/AFP | Getty Images}

For the past few days leading up to the wedding, protesters have been making signs and chanting, “No space for Bezos,” in an obvious play on words regarding the space company Bezos founded, Blue Origin.

However, the AP reports that, despite the protests, the betrothed have used local vendors for about 80% of the provisions, and the businesses they spoke to were happy about the extra orders.

The 6th-generation owner of Rosa Salva, a bakery that has been making pastries since 1876, told the AP that his business made a selection of items for the goody bags for the wedding and was happy to see the city in the national spotlight.

“Events like this bring quality tourism to Venice,” he said. “I don’t see how an event with 200 people can create disruptions. It’s responsible tourism. It’s prestigious that a couple like this, who can go anywhere in the world, are getting married in the city.”

The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, is also excited for the event.

Brugnaro told the AP this week that it was “an honor” that Bezos and Sánchez chose Venice.

“Venice once again reveals itself to be a global stage,” he said.

Related: Jeff Bezos Is Selling Billions Worth of Amazon Stock, According to a New Filing

Following the unexpected success of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which have sold two million pairs since launch in late 2023, Meta is releasing new versions of its AI smart glasses under the Oakley and Prada brands.

According to a CNBC report released Tuesday, Meta is expanding its partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the parent company that owns Ray-Ban and Oakley and has a licensing agreement with Prada. The new Oakley Meta smart glasses will target athletes and active customers, while the Prada partnership will give Meta a high-end deal with a notable fashion house.

Related: Apple Is Reportedly Developing AI Smart Glasses to Compete with Meta and Google

The Oakley glasses will reportedly start at $360, a higher price point than the $299 Ray-Ban Metas, but have a more weather-resistant style, a source told CNBC. The glasses will be able to take photos and videos, make calls and send text messages through voice commands, livestream content, and play music, just like the Ray-Ban Metas. They will also have AI capabilities, so users can ask questions through a “Hey Meta” voice command.

Bloomberg also reported in January that the Oakley glasses were set to be released later this year, and the camera will be in the center of the frame instead of on the side, like the Ray-Ban Metas, so that “cyclists and other athletes” could record footage.

Meta previewed the Oakley partnership on social media on Monday by creating a new Instagram account for “Oakley | Meta” with one post that reads: “The next evolution is coming on June 20.”

Prada, meanwhile, renewed its eyewear licensing agreement with Luxottica for the next decade in December. Former Meta employees told CNBC that Prada eyewear designs were a good fit for Meta because the glasses feature thick temples that can house more technology.

Meta has yet to announce the Prada deal or a timeline for when the smart glasses will hit the market.

Related: Google Is Making AI ‘Intelligent Eyewear’ With Warby Parker After Eyeing Meta’s Ray-Ban Success

EssilorLuxottica and Meta first joined forces in 2019 to work on the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Meta released a first-generation pair in 2021 and a second-generation pair in 2023.

The second-generation glasses took off; EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri said during an earnings call in February that the AI smart glasses were “a great success” and that the company plans to produce 10 million of them by the end of next year.

Meta, meanwhile, is also making a broader push into artificial intelligence. The company announced last week that it would invest $14.3 billion in AI data labeling startup, Scale AI, in exchange for a 49% stake. Some Scale AI employees, including CEO Alexandr Wang, will join Meta as part of the move.

Becoming a first-time parent is one of those transformative life experiences that fundamentally reshapes your perspective. As a CEO and a new father, my world recently flipped upside down, in the best possible way. Fatherhood brings immense joy, but it also introduces a whole new set of challenges around balancing motivation, delegation, mental fitness, opportunity pursuit and time management.

For leaders accustomed to full-throttle work, the transition to parenthood can seem daunting. Yet, if navigated thoughtfully, it can strengthen your leadership capabilities, sharpen your strategic thinking and enhance your personal growth.

Related: 5 Ways Becoming a New Dad Has Made Me a Better Leader

Finding motivation in new priorities

One immediate impact of parenthood is an evolution in what motivates you. Prior to becoming a father, my drive was predominantly professional — launching products, hitting revenue targets, scaling teams. But fatherhood quickly reshapes priorities, anchoring your motivations around family stability, long-term security and creating a legacy that extends beyond the boardroom.

Take Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, who openly shares how becoming a parent changed his outlook. After the birth of his daughters, Zuckerberg notably increased his commitment to philanthropy, dedicating significant resources toward initiatives aimed at improving education, health and community well-being. Parenthood encouraged him to think deeply about the broader societal impact of his work, showing that new motivations born from family can profoundly enhance leadership.

Mastering the art of delegation

As a first-time parent, your available time shrinks drastically. Suddenly, the hours you could freely dedicate to your startup narrow significantly, requiring a greater reliance on delegation. This constraint, though initially frustrating, is actually a hidden gift, forcing you to become a better, more efficient leader.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, openly discusses his approach to delegating critical tasks after becoming a father to multiple children. Musk stresses the importance of building strong, capable teams to whom you can confidently delegate substantial responsibilities. As a CEO, the necessity to delegate effectively is heightened by parenthood, compelling you to empower your team more intentionally and thus accelerating organizational growth.

Related: How I Started a Business and Had a Baby in One Year Without Going (Completely) Insane

Staying mentally fit and sharp

Balancing the demands of parenthood and leadership requires impeccable mental fitness. Sleep deprivation, emotional stress and shifting priorities can test your mental resilience. However, by establishing routines that prioritize mental health, you not only become a better parent but also a more effective CEO.

Meditation, regular exercise and deliberate rest become non-negotiables rather than luxuries. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square, has often spoken about how mindful practices such as meditation became integral to his routine after significant life shifts. These routines sharpen decision-making capabilities, increase emotional intelligence and foster resilience, all critical to both effective parenting and leadership.

Aggressively pursuing opportunities with new constraints

While parenthood introduces constraints, it also teaches efficiency in pursuing opportunities. With limited hours, every minute of work becomes more strategic, targeted and intentional. Parenthood can clarify what truly matters, pushing you to aggressively chase the right opportunities rather than simply every opportunity.

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and father to Olympia, has been vocal about how parenthood refined his perspective on work and investments. His advocacy for parental leave and family-friendly policies also opened new professional avenues aligned with his personal values, demonstrating that parenthood can help clarify and focus your professional pursuits.

Balancing work, life and legacy

Ultimately, balancing parenthood and CEO responsibilities isn’t about compartmentalizing your life into work and family boxes. It’s about creating harmony and recognizing how each role enriches the other. Parenthood expands your empathy, enhances your strategic thinking and deepens your understanding of long-term planning.

Jeff Bezos famously prioritizes family breakfasts, maintaining that quality time with family sets a positive tone for his professional engagements. These habits create an integrated, sustainable approach to balancing responsibilities, ensuring that neither your business nor your family suffers at the expense of the other.

Related: What Entrepreneurship and Parenthood Taught Me About Empathy

Looking forward

Becoming a first-time parent as a CEO is undeniably challenging. It demands significant adjustments in how you delegate, prioritize, maintain your mental health and pursue opportunities. Yet, this life-changing experience is not just a personal milestone but an extraordinary professional advantage. Parenthood shapes you into a leader who is more focused, empathetic, strategic and resilient.

To fellow CEOs entering parenthood for the first time: Embrace the challenge. Recognize that your experiences as a parent don’t detract from your role as a CEO; they elevate it. By thoughtfully integrating parenthood into your leadership style, you can achieve greater professional success while nurturing a fulfilling, meaningful family life.

We’ve all seen the stats: a huge percentage of professionals say they want to write a book. But between client calls, internal meetings, and just keeping your inbox manageable, it’s no surprise that the manuscript remains a Google Doc titled “Book_Outline_FINAL_v3”.

That’s where Youbooks comes in. It’s an AI-powered non-fiction book generator built for entrepreneurs who have insights worth sharing with the world, but not 300+ hours to write them down. And unlike most tools in the productivity or publishing space, this one comes with a lifetime subscription for $49 (reg. $540)—no monthly fees and no subscription fatigue necessary.

There’s no need to even pick up a pen

Youbooks pulls together the power of multiple AI models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama) and a 1,000-step production pipeline to create structured, research-backed manuscripts up to 300,000 words. It even integrates real-time online research to keep things current and customizable, down to tone and voice.

The platform’s credit system gives you 150,000 monthly AI credits, enough to produce dozens of full-length drafts annually. You can export in formats like PDF, EPUB, DOCX, or Markdown—and yes, you get full commercial rights to your content. That means you’re free to publish, monetize, or pitch to traditional publishers without any of the usual licensing headaches.

While YouBooks takes your ideas and makes them come to fruition in manuscript form, it’s not a magic wand—you’ll still need to edit, review, and shape your book. However, this tool handles the heavy lifting that often stops the process before it starts.

If you’ve been sitting on an idea for a leadership guide, professional memoir, or industry handbook for fellow colleagues, this could be your easiest on-ramp to publishing. And with a one-time price tag that’s lower than most online courses, it may also be one of the smartest.

Good ideas shouldn’t stay stuck in your notes app forever.

Put your ideas into a long-form manuscript with help from this Youbooks lifetime subscription, now just $49 while supplies last.

Youbooks – AI Non-Fiction Book Generator: Lifetime Subscription

See Deal

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Is your electric bill higher than normal? Sure, it’s summer in the U.S., and a higher bill due to air conditioning costs can be expected. In fact, CBS reports that electricity prices have risen 4.5% in the last year, according to recent data from the Labor Department.

But what about a higher bill due to AI? It’s happening to electric customers across the country, even if they’ve never asked a chatbot a question.

Related: Saying ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ to ChatGPT Costs OpenAI ‘Tens of Millions of Dollars’

Customers in New Jersey, for example, are fuming over the news that their electric bills could surge up to 20% this summer due to data centers, per a new report in the local Patch outlet. But the entire U.S. could soon be affected.

Floodlight reports that the way electric companies currently set rates won’t work with the unprecedented demand Big Tech has with AI, and highlights a report from Harvard’s Electricity Law Initiative that said, unless the current system changes, U.S. consumers will be the ones who pay “billions of dollars” for it.

Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, told CBS MoneyWatch the same — that the American taxpayers will be the ones footing the bill — not the AI companies.

“As utilities race to meet skyrocketing demand from AI and cloud computing, they’re building new infrastructure and raising rates, often without transparency or public input,” Wolfe said. “That means higher electricity bills for everyday households, while tech companies benefit from sweetheart deals behind closed doors.”

Related: Excess Energy from AI Servers Is Heating the Pool at the 2024 Olympic Games — Here’s How

Digital automation company, Schneider Electric, found that electricity demand will increase at least 16% in the U.S. by 2029 due to data centers. This is only expected to grow as the number of data centers also grows (it already doubled in the U.S. between 2021 and 2024, per a report from Environment America). And the number is increasing with generative AI and other technological advances.

Meanwhile, the rise in electricity needs could result in “lower system stability,” according to a recent report by the North American Electric Reliability Corp., and a grid operator in 13 states and Washington, D.C., PJM, said data center demand could lead to “capacity shortages” in its 2025 forecast.

The “Godfather of AI” says that some fields are safer than others when it comes to being replaced by AI.

Geoffrey Hinton, 78, is often referred to as the Godfather of AI due to his pioneering work on neural networks, which began in the late 1970s. He won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on machine learning and is currently a professor emeritus in computer science at the University of Toronto.

In a recent interview on the podcast “Diary of a CEO” that aired on Monday, Hinton said AI has the potential to cause mass joblessness.

“I think for mundane intellectual labor, AI is just going to replace everybody,” Hinton said. “Mundane intellectual labor” refers to white-collar jobs. He specified that the replacement would take the form of “a person and an AI assistant” doing the work that “ten people did previously.”

Related: These 3 Professions Are Most Likely to Vanish in the Next 20 Years Due to AI, According to a New Report

Hinton gave one example, noting that paralegals were at risk of losing their jobs to AI, and said that he would be “terrified” to work in a call center right now, due to the potential for automation. However, he pointed out that blue-collar work would take a longer time to be replaced by AI.

“I’d say it’s going to be a long time before it [AI] is as good at physical manipulation,” Hinton said in the podcast. “So, a good bet would be to be a plumber.”

In the interview, Hinton also challenged the notion that AI would create new jobs, stating that if AI automated intellectual tasks, there would be few jobs left for people to do.

“You’d have to be very skilled to have a job that it [AI] just couldn’t do,” Hinton said.

^{Geoffrey Hinton. Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images}

AI has the potential to decrease hiring, especially for entry-level jobs. A report released last month from venture capital firm SignalFire found that big tech companies have stopped hiring new graduates for entry-level roles as much as they did in the past, and AI is a significant reason for the decline.

The report found that the percentage of new graduate hires at companies like Meta and Google dropped by 25% from 2023 to 2024, reaching just 7% in 2024.

Related: Investment Firm CEO Tells Thousands in Conference Audience That 60% of Them Will Be ‘Looking for Work’ Next Year

It’s not just the tech industry — Wall Street also shows signs of being impacted by AI. In March, Morgan Stanley announced layoffs of 2,000 employees, intending to replace some with AI. A report released in January from Bloomberg Intelligence showed that AI could cause as many as 200,000 job cuts across 93 major banks, including Citigroup and JPMorgan, within the next five years.

In a digital-first world, your first impression rarely happens in person. It happens online — in Google results, on LinkedIn, in your byline. Whether you’re a founder, freelancer or future exec, how you show up digitally shapes the opportunities you get. But until recently, building a credible, polished personal brand required time, money and professional help.

AI is changing that. It’s not just transforming how businesses operate. It’s transforming how individuals present themselves.

AI can amplify — or undermine — your brand

AI branding tools promise speed, scale and studio-quality polish. But here’s the truth: AI won’t fix a messy brand. It will just make the mess more visible.

Too many people expect AI to do all the work — to generate their voice, define their message and reach their audience. But when you skip the foundational work, the content it produces tends to feel generic or misaligned. The brands that succeed with AI are led by people who are clear about what they stand for, how they speak and who they’re speaking to.

AI is an amplifier. If you feed it clarity, you get consistency. If you feed it confusion, you get noise.

Related: How Generative AI Will Revolutionize The Future of Your Brand

Creative vision still matters

Think of AI as your assistant, not your replacement. The best results come when you approach it like a creative director — providing direction, editing with care and injecting personal perspective. AI can help you write faster, create visuals and automate workflow, but it can’t replace your lived experience or your intuition.

Your tone, stories and opinions are what make your brand memorable. AI helps scale that — not substitute it.

Applying AI with intention

If you’re just getting started, focus on three areas where AI can make the biggest impact.

Start with your visual identity. If you don’t have professional photos, AI-generated headshots can instantly upgrade your presence across LinkedIn, websites, pitch decks and even speaking proposals. One consultant I worked with used consistent AI-generated photos across her content, creating a recognizable image that made her brand feel more credible and cohesive — without a photoshoot.

Then, apply AI to your messaging and content. Use it to brainstorm ideas, draft outlines and edit posts. But always refine the output to make sure your voice comes through.

Finally, look at workflow automation. AI can summarize calls, suggest content ideas and even help manage your calendar.

What success looks like

I’ve personally seen solopreneurs use AI-generated headshots, content templates and automation to transform their brand on a shoestring budget — getting booked for podcasts, signing new clients and landing speaking gigs.

The common thread? They didn’t treat AI as a shortcut. They treated it as a creative partner.

What to watch out for

Of course, AI isn’t without risk. The biggest mistake is outsourcing your voice completely. If your content starts to sound like everyone else’s, you lose what makes you distinctive. Authenticity is still the currency of trust.

Another trap is tool overload. New AI platforms launch daily, but chasing them all will scatter your focus. Start simple. Master one or two that support your workflow, like ChatGPT for writing or Gemini for quick summaries, and grow from there.

Related: AI for the Underdog — Here’s How Small Businesses Can Thrive With Artificial Intelligence

The future belongs to those who adapt

AI is no longer optional. It’s a strategic advantage for anyone building a reputation online. As it becomes more embedded in content creation, branding and business ops, the people who learn to use it thoughtfully will stand out.

More importantly, AI is lowering the barrier to high-quality personal branding. You no longer need a team or a five-figure budget to look like a pro. What you do need is vision, clarity, and the willingness to lead the process.

If you bring the perspective, AI can bring the power.

Just like how an athlete trains for peak performance, your career growth demands passion, resilience and daily action. Tapping into your inner competitor will guide you to build the momentum needed to thrive professionally. Here are some strategies to help you stay focused and energized in your journey.

1. Strengthen your mindset

Just as athletes visualize their performance before a big game, you need to be able to let your mind guide you in making your professional dreams come true. It is a matter of using your intuition to navigate uncertainties that lead you to success. You will learn to adopt a sense of purpose when you envision your future and take steps to make it a reality.

Use your senses to bring to life what success will be like, and this will motivate you to pursue it further. Observe the turf, hear the crowd, feel the adrenaline. When you achieve a desired level of success, what will your new car smell like? Imagine being able to travel and see destinations that have been on your bucket list. Tasting foods that seemed too splurge-y at one time are now a bite away.

Being legally blind, I have come to rely on my heightened senses and mental focus just as an athlete trusts their instincts when the road is not clear. My motto has always been “You Don’t Need Sight To Have Vision” meaning in my mind, my dreams are fed through all my other senses and that translates into giving me the energy to keep going on those long days.

The best way to know if and how you are progressing is to track your performance and reflect from week to week. Journaling is a great way to keep track of your efforts and consider if you are satisfied with your growth. Having this log is like reviewing game footage and will enable you to see where you should focus your greatest efforts and if there are any new issues that may need attention.

I use an audio recorder as my mental fitness tracker for my list of to-dos and projects completed. Being able to listen to my voice also allows me to hear my state of mind. This can be revealing to see how positive I was in a moment of indecision or even how strained I may have been in the height of a busy day. Sometimes exhausted but often with that intentional focus, I see mental blocks and doubts fade away as my intellect grows.

A runner’s mindset is their biggest advantage before a long race, fueling their body through belief and determination. Consider using affirmations to boost your spirit on those days you are challenged. Many people shy away from being proud of their achievements but truly, the inner athlete in me knows that with every effort, I am doing my best and am taking a step further into my journey of growth.

Related: 10 Strategies for Building a Successful Entrepreneurial Mindset, Overcoming Self-Doubt and Encouraging Growth

2. Energize your day

Growing in one’s career takes laps of deadlines and expectations that require grit, pacing and inner strength. These can feel like an unnecessary weight to carry which can impact your thinking and functioning ability. To navigate these strenuous times, it takes channeling your inner athlete to have the stamina to keep up.

To build endurance, runners need to know when to take breaks and recover. If you find that you are sitting at a desk and you know that you have a long day ahead of you, consider making sure you are consistently stretching your back and maintaining good posture so that you can get through the long day without feeling pain from all the sitting. Consider even massaging your fingers in between typing or rubbing your own neck and shoulders to keep them from getting tight as you look at your computer screen.

I believe in maintaining my energy level through quick, spontaneous bursts. That might be a cold or hot shower, often multiple times a day, enabling me to be alert so I am creative. I also use ankle weights and do leg lifts in virtual meetings to provide energy to the rest of my body. This way I can dedicate the top of my body to be present and engaged in leading a presentation, while at the same time I can get my lower body working out to keep my endurance at peak level.

It is important to push the envelope from time to time. Just like how an athlete is constantly striving for their personal best, you need to be comfortable extending past your limits. This means that you may physically commit to more in a day than normal. Consider looking at your schedule: can you get in an additional call to a client or one night a week, go to a networking function? Those extra efforts can open doors for your career.

Related: I Work Nearly 50+ Hours a Week and Rarely Feel Tired — Here Are My Secrets to All-Day Natural Energy

Cross-training is vital to develop balance and agility. I wake up every day looking to do one new action I have never tried before. That might be exploring how I can use AI to move an initiative forward, expanding my brain in a way that is new. I might also choose to physically organize a room at the office. This often has me finding items I had forgotten about or opens space to expand within the office with less clutter, allowing for room to grow.

Harnessing your inner career athlete means showing up in the arena with purpose, breaking boundaries and celebrating your successes along the way. Your mindset is your playbook, your energy is your fuel and your daily actions are your drills. Through proper conditioning and training, you create a powerful rhythm of growth, driving yourself forward until you cross the finish line.

Data from a survey done by Self Financial found that 45% of people have a side hustle in addition to holding a full-time position. From online reselling to freelance design or copywriting work, there are numerous opportunities that one could turn into a successful business. Starting up a business previously required managing inventory, websites, payments, and more from separate platforms with steep learning curves. Sellful’s ERP Agency Platform uses AI to manage multiple business functions from one intuitive platform and now, you can get lifetime access for only $349.97.

No matter what phase of entrepreneurship you’re in, you can turn ideas into execution with Sellful. Easily generate visually stunning landing pages, websites, and funnels in seconds with AI. Set up shopping pages for physical or digital products and manage inventory through Sellful’s native POS app. Taking payments becomes simple through integration with Stripe, PayPal, Square, and more.

If you’re a freelancer or consultant who is managing multiple businesses on behalf of clients, Sellful has unlimited white label features such as email marketing, HR and payroll management, and a support ticket system.

Usually $1,497, Sellful’s powerful AI offers a seamless solution for previously time-consuming business functions. Manage all parts of your business, no matter what phase you’re in, and see how Sellful can help you grow.

Get Sellful’s ERP Agency Plan for $349.97 now.

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