Blog

Goldman Sachs ran the numbers on Trump’s tariffs. Their finding: US companies and consumers collectively absorbed 82% of the tariff costs in October 2025. By July 2026, Goldman projects that 67% of the burden falls on consumers alone.

That’s not an abstract policy number. That 67% shows up in grocery bills, appliance prices and the monthly squeeze on household budgets that’s been compounding for the better part of three years now.

The Institute for Supply Management adds more texture to the picture. US manufacturing activity contracted for nine consecutive months through early 2026. Unemployment sits at a four-year high. Hiring slowed more sharply in 2025 than any year since the Great Recession, excluding the pandemic.

Most investors read headlines like this and wonder whether to rebalance their stock portfolio. Here’s why I think passive real estate investors are reading the same headlines and seeing something very different.

The conventional fear around tariffs and real estate runs like this: tariffs raise construction costs, higher costs reduce new supply and reduced supply worsens affordability. That chain of logic holds up.

Lumber, steel, aluminum and appliances all face import tariffs at various rates. The National Association of Home Builders put the tariff-driven cost increase per new single-family home at roughly $9,200 in early 2026. That doesn’t stop construction entirely. It slows it and shifts the economics toward higher-end builds where margins can absorb the hit.

The net effect: affordable and workforce housing supply tightens further while demand stays strong. People who can’t afford to buy keep renting. People who might have bought a $280,000 starter home find it now costs $310,000 and pencils differently at current mortgage rates. They rent instead.

That dynamic has been building since 2022. Tariffs accelerate it.

Here’s the number that matters most for passive real estate investors right now.

Median home prices nationally hover near all-time highs around $364,000, according to Zillow data from early 2026. The 30-year fixed rate still sits above 6%. Household income growth hasn’t kept pace with either of those numbers since the pandemic.

The result: a growing cohort of Americans who’ve become persistent renters. They’re not renting because they prefer it. They’re renting because the math on buying doesn’t work for them…  and it won’t work in the near term regardless of what happens to interest rates.

That cohort needs somewhere to live. They want space…  ideally a single-family home experience, or at minimum a well-maintained apartment in a neighborhood with decent schools and reasonable commutes. They’ll pay market rent for it. What they can’t do is produce a $60,000 down payment and qualify for a mortgage that costs more than their current rent.

Workforce housing in middle America serves exactly that cohort. The Clevelands, the Columbus’s, the mid-sized metros with diverse employment bases and median household incomes between $55,000 and $85,000. Deni and I have invested in several deals fitting that profile through the co-investing club over the past couple of years. The distribution yields have held consistently. The operators running those properties report waiting lists, not vacancy problems.

That’s the environment tariffs are reinforcing…  not creating from scratch, but reinforcing and extending.

Henry:
What’s going on everybody? Henry Washington here and happy Labor Day. I hope you’re all doing something super fun. On the feed today, we’re sharing an episode of our sister podcast on the market that was originally published on August 20th. James Dainard, Kathy Fettke and I broke down a few big recent real estate news stories. We covered JP Morgan’s announcement that they’re investing 750 billion, that’s billion with a B into the housing market, and also talked about whether the market has already peaked for 2026 and whether the latest inflation report could stop the Fed from raising interest rates. We’ll be back with a brand new episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast in just a couple of days. Here’s that conversation with me, James, and Kathy.

James:
So let’s just jump right in. Henry, what do you got today?

Henry:
Well, I picked a story that was very near and dear to my heart, top of mind, something I am always thinking about. The headline is, “The market may have already peaked for 2026 and the summer isn’t even over yet.” This is an article found on usnews.com, and it’s talking about what’s happening in the real estate market in terms of sales. So the article goes on to talk about that existing home sales fell 1.7% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.06 million. Even as the median home prices have climbed to a record for the month, the national median existing home price rose 2% year over year. That’s up to $434,000 in July, making that the 37th consecutive month of annual price gains. So housing prices have gone up and the market seems to have already peaked in terms of sales price. And now that we haven’t finished summer yet, but we’re moving into what would normally be a winter slowdown anyway, could be just a not pretty time in terms of real estate sales in the country.
And as I was researching this article, I came across another article that talked about how first home purchase sales are down, but luxury home sales are up. And I think all of this is tied to affordability. Interest rates peaked over the last month and that’s caused a slowdown in the market for people who are just barely priced into the market. But there’s also a lot of people who have made a lot of money or are making a lot of money in stock market gains. And so the wealth gap is pretty substantial. And so the people who have more money are buying more luxury homes. And in my market, I’m seeing exactly that. And why do I know that? Because I’m trying to sell my house right now, my personal house. And every house in my neighborhood in the luxury market, when it goes up for sale, it is under contract in less than 30 days.
Wow. But when I’m selling my flips, I am seeing longer times on market. It’s a little harder to sell them. There’s more competition. And so I think all this just plays into affordability. But I was very curious, James, is that the same thing you’re seeing in your market? Your market’s substantially more expensive than mine, but you’re doing deals consistently.

James:
Yeah, it’s flat. Things are sitting on market. I mean, it depends on what it is. There’s velocity in every city.
So I think one of the most important things that we’ve been going over the last 90 days is where’s the velocity at in every zip code? Because it doesn’t matter if it’s luxurious or it’s a first time home buyer, there’s a price point that’s moving in that pocket. Everything is not selling, but there’s a lot of things that aren’t moving. And so we’re really locking down by zip codes, price points, where’s the velocity? And that’s what we’re really targeting. For example, in North Seattle, if you have a house that’s 1.5 million and it’s a good street, that is selling and it’s going to sell on the first weekend. If you’re 1.7 million, not selling, your market times are going a hundred days. And so you really got to look at every type of price point. Look in 10% blocks and then focus on that because it tells you where to be aggressive and not to be aggressive.
I mean, it’s not enjoyable in the summer when you’re sitting on, I think I got 18 for sale. I would say I’m clicking off two to three a month. But one thing I do want to stress is this was no different last summer. Last summer was terrible. And so what I’m hoping is we actually did see a little bit of an uptick in momentum the last two weeks. I think we sold five new construction of ours, a little bit more starter units. I sold a couple different flips. And it’s funny, the ones I though wouldn’t sell sold and the ones I though would sell.

Henry:
Story of my life. Same thing here. Just when I think I’m a real estate expert and can predict what’s going to sell and what’s not, I am absolutely not that because I have houses that I’m like, this one’s going to be a tough sale under contract in 30 days. And I have houses that I’m like, oh, this one’s going to fly off the shelves. Sits. So don’t ask me. Maybe I just don’t know what buyers want anymore.

Kathy:
It’s crazy. I mean, we have a subdivision we’re building in Oregon and we actually have the city come to us and say, we need more housing. We want to help you come up here. We’ve heard your reputation. And we did. We got some land, we got a great deal on it. This is the one where we just optioned the lots. We didn’t even have to buy them, built the homes and they’re sitting, same thing. And the offers we’re getting are brutal. It’s something you and I would offer. They are low ball offers. We had one regular sale recently, but same thing, like five brand new homes just sitting on the market and it hurts. It’s painful. But then we have a big subdivision, the one I’ve probably talked about before. It’s north of Tampa and that’s where we bought 4,200 lots back in 2012, I don’t know, for 10 cents on the dollar, but it’s a lot of lots.
And that one has just been consistent. It’s done great. Maybe because it’s, I don’t know, it’s Florida, it’s inland. Could be that people are moving from more expensive areas like Miami has gotten so expensive, they’re moving inland where there’s not as. I don’t know, but that one’s doing great. So as we always say, every market is different, but I also have my finger on the pulse of buyers and we just saw massive buying at Real Wealth, one of the best months that we’ve had. So what’s that? Just all over the place.

Henry:
Yeah. And it’s so weird. James, you mentioned that we had a similar time last summer. And I agree with you from a velocity perspective, but this summer feels a little different. And here’s what I’m saying in my market because again, real estate is local. Last year when I put a good product on the market, it was done well and priced right, it’s still sold. This summer, that’s not always the case. Sometimes that’s the case, but sometimes it’s not. And I think affordability is really playing more of a factor this summer than it has last summer. Because the trend that I’m seeing in my market is when we start comping these houses before we put them on the market again, and actually when we’re buying them, because I comp them twice. I comp them when I buy them and then I comp them right before we put them on the market so that I can make sure that we price it right because the market shifts pretty quickly sometimes.
And what I’m seeing in comps is homes that are unrenovated, but livable and clean have far less days on market than homes that are flipped and look super pristine. And I think that’s just the affordability. I think people are much more willing to buy a unflipped home where they can put their own touch on it and get in for a lower price point than houses that are looking awesome because they’ve been flipped. And so we’ve had to adjust our strategy where we do kind of a two-pronged approach when we’re buying deals right now. I comp deals where I can just clean them out, turn around and sell them as they sit and I comp deals as a flip. So I’m using the flip as my plan B now. Plan A is just to get it clean and livable and get it on the market and see if we can get that deal churned faster.
And we’ve done it a few times now and it’s worked out really well, but all of that to me is just a problem with people’s affordability.

James:
We’re seeing the same thing. There’s grandma’s house, which is your clean, dated house, well kept and well taken care of, but these aren’t like fixer properties. These are like the windows are okay, the roofs are okay. There’s about a 20% delta on that price. If that house is selling for a million dollars in our neighborhood, it’s going to trade for 850 as is in that kind of dated condition. And it’s pretty consistent across the board. Same thing if it’s worth 500, they’re selling for like 380. And so we have problems making that pencil because we have to buy them so cheap that we just can’t get them for that pricing.

Henry:
Yeah. Well, again, I think because real estate’s so regional, my market doesn’t have those kinds of spreads. For me, it’s the percentage wise, it’s not that big of a deal. So as an example, we just bought one for 130. Now original, the flip plan is to spend 60 on the renovation, sell it for 275. But instead of doing that, we’re going to spend three to 5,000 on the renovation, just cleaning it out, cutting back some of the shrubs and the bushes in the backyard, professional cleaners, stick it on the market for $200,000. So yeah, I could sell it for 275 flipped or I can spend nothing, sell it for 200 and I’ll actually make pretty close to the same amount of profit.

James:
Yeah. Look for the velocity because people are rain clouds rightnow. They’re like, oh, market six. I got some messages from somebody like, “Hey, do you want to come to this conference?” I was like, “No.” And they’re like, “Well, it’s just important to get everyone together to huddle and talk about what’s going on with the market.” I’m like, “Are we in the same market?” The market’s not, it’s not like it’s 2008 or nine. I mean, this is flat. And I think the key today is you got to reduce your holding costs on everything, whether it’s new construction build, whether you’re going to dispo, how can you get that monthly debt down? Whether you’re refinancing them into DSER loans, can you refinance that product? Right now I’m about ready to refinance all my flips into more DSER because then it just knocks two points off my interest carry.
And you just got to look at how can I stop the bleed? And it’s not just for flipping. Any type of project right now, the bleed and the expense of the debt is what’s really beating up the deals because it’s just taking a lot longer to sell.

Kathy:
Yeah. I mean, that’s kind of why I love and probably will continue to do buy and hold so I don’t have to worry about selling anything, just renting it.

James:
Well, Kathy, because you guys buy so much new construction for the buy and hold because some price points are dead in the new construction. I mean, you guys have been able to start talking to these builders about dumping off in bulk too,

Kathy:
Right? Oh, we’ve been doing it for years. I mean, builders are distressed. And when you’re a buyer, you want to look for the distress. I mean, you guys know that. So why not? I know this sounds terrible, but why not look for a distressed builder because now you don’t have to buy an old property and fix it up. You’ve got a brand new property that you can get for a discount. So that is what we’ve been doing. I literally just was looking at some properties that are highly discounted from builders and they don’t want to reduce their price because then they’ve ruined the comps for everything else they’ve got to sell. So if they can spend a bunch of money and buy down your rate, you can get a really low rate, in some cases 3%, that really makes it cashflow well in a brand new home.
And a lot of people don’t realize on the buy and hold side, if you have a new home, say in Florida where everybody’s complaining about insurance, the insurance is not high on newer homes because they’re built to hurricane standards. So it’s just a lot lower insurance, a lot lower CapEx over time, and people love to rent new homes, so it’s fairly easy to rent. So for me, it’s kind of a set and forget type buy and hold and I love it. So yeah, to me it’s a wonderful, one of the greatest opportunities out there. But this is only for people who don’t like getting their hands dirty like me.

James:
No, but you know what though? The new construction, it’s starting to become very attractive for value add investors because you can now buy for less than you can build it for.

Kathy:
Yeah, in a lot of cases. And listen, I’m on both sides of that. I’m on the side of being a builder and trying to sell stuff and having a really difficult time, but that’s kind of how it is for you guys. If you’re in flipping, you got to be able to find the deal so you love a buyer’s market, but then you got to sell it so you hate a buyer’s market. That’s the

Henry:
Game.

Kathy:
When are you going to time it perfectly where you’re buying in a buyer’s market, then you’re selling in the seller’s market? You just have to figure it out, right? It’s a balancing act, which is why if you are buy and hold, all you really have to focus on is the buy. And then the hold being what are the rents? How are rents doing? Are they going up or down versus I got to think about what I’m selling because if you’re buy and hold, if you want to sell, you just sell when the timing’s right.

James:
Well, Kathy, I want to talk about some serious money getting put into the market, but before we do that, we’re going to take a quick break. Welcome back to the On the Market Podcast. Kathy, someone’s about ready to drop some serious money into the housing market. I want to know where the money’s getting spent because I can go follow it.

Kathy:
Yeah. My article today really contradicts the sort of doom and gloom we just talked about. This is an optimistic article, I guess you could say. It’s from JP Morgan Chase and it’s basically JP Morgan Chase is doubling down on housing. So they see something that maybe others don’t see. Those who are sitting on the sidelines should probably sit up and pay attention. They are deploying 750 billion through 2035. That’s up by more than $200 billion through their American Dream Initiative. This is nearly 40% more than the firm’s housing capital deployment over the past decade. So again, we’re seeing big companies like Berkshire Hathaway investing in builders. You’ve got JP Morgan Chase upping what they’re going to be lending and also kind of coming in as debt and equity to build affordable housing. And you’ve got Japanese companies buying American builders. So these huge firms are a little more positive than we just were.
They see this demand coming, they see this lack of housing and they are all in. I mean, this is huge. My guess is that a lot of times companies will follow legislation and clearly we just had this new legislation really pushing for new housing and maybe they’re getting incentives for doing it. Maybe they know something we don’t know about the new housing bill getting tax credits, but there’s more momentum towards bringing on that affordable housing and the big players are jumping in and taking advantage.

James:
You always want to follow the money, right? I mean, it’s kind of like, I remember 2008, nine, and 10 when Blackstone started buying all the single. Or no, it was 2010 and 11 started

Kathy:
Getting hard. It was 2012. It’s when Warren Buffet said on national TV, “If I could buy a few hundred thousand houses, I would if I knew how to manage them.” That was the second part, if I knew how to manage them. Instead, he went into creating Berkshire Hathaway and be on the real estate sales side. But a bunch of institutional investors at that time said, “Well, golly, I’ll learn how to manage them.” And let’s face it, they didn’t know how in the beginning, but they figured it out and they brought in new systems. So I do feel like that’s kind of happening right now. There’s a lot of signals that we should be paying attention to because there’s big money coming in and those people sitting on the sidelines waiting for prices to drop, do you think Warren Buffet’s company might know a thing or two?
Do you think JP Morgan Chase might know a thing or two? Listen to them. Sure, it’s probably easier for them to make bets, but to me, it does feel like a similar signal that we got in 2012 that we’re getting now.

James:
Part of this is for financing too.

Kathy:
Yeah, they’re going to be lending. Being a lender is one of the more safe positions, but trying to be able to help more people get into housing, be able to buy their own home, but also building, bringing on new affordable housing as debt and equity.

Henry:
I was looking at this article and it got me thinking, so what does it really mean when JP Morgans are deploying more money into the single family real estate space? And when I was reading through it, it looks like it breaks it down in buckets. So it’s saying one of the buckets is they’re going to be lending more money to developers to build apartments. So that increases housing units, increases apartment units. There’s another bucket where they’re going to be writing more mortgages. So this is what I though the article was mainly talking about. So in other words, they’re saying, “We’re going to be writing more mortgages. More people should be able to buy a home, get a loan from us. We want to put money out there for people to buy homes.” And then the third bucket is investments in affordable housing funds, which is interesting.
I hadn’t thought this was something they do, but essentially putting their own money at risk as an investor and investing in affordable housing funds, which is pretty cool, but that’s a lot of capital to be all thrown at one specific asset class. So I mean, I like it. That’s good for me. I’m a single family and small multifamily investor. So to me, that means that the asset that I own has some demand attached to it. Yeah.

James:
It’s funny. There’s so much weird bad taste in people’s mouths about these big companies buying in real estate. They don’t want hedge funds buying up all the housing, right? And when you really dig into this article, they’re providing a lot of money for first-time home buyers, different types of financing options. And the good thing is, I always look at this as the banks are very quick to change their mind, the big banks. That’s why as an investor, I only work with small banks because once the big bank gets sick of real estate, they don’t really want to give you too much money on it.
The good news is when you are seeing bigger banks, they have a lot of money, they spend a lot of money on research, deploying that much capital into the housing market. They’re not really predicting a massive crash because why are they going to provide so much financing for first-time home buyers that are putting down a low down payment if they think their asset’s going to be worth 10 to 20% less in three years? They’re predicting stability is how I look at that. So anytime they’re providing this kind of financing, it makes me feel more confident, especially when you have a flatter market right now. And that’s what you want, is you want confidence in this market because when the market is flat, you start to double guess yourself on everything. You’re like, “Is this a deal? I know what a deal is. I’ve been buying deals a long time, but on paper it’s a deal, but is it really a deal?” And so these are important things to look at because it shows stability coming forward.
And so I like these things, just gives me a little bit of that spinach courage to where I’m like, “All right, let’s go buy some stuff.” Well, we’re going to dive into the CPI report and what’s going on with inflation and what that could mean for rate cuts soon as we take this break.
All right, we are back on On the Market Podcast and we’re going to jump right into the CPI report. So I pulled the article from Fox Business about the inflation. So CPI report came out yesterday, December 12th, and we had some good news. It didn’t rise very much.

Kathy:
That’s real good news.

James:
The CPI report came out yesterday, August 12th in July. CPI rose just 0.1% for the month with an annual inflation down to 3.4% from 3.5%. The core CPI at two and a half percent is the slowest it’s been since the post-pandemic surge. So we’re finally starting to see inflation kind of slow down. Now, a lot of what this article does talk about is we’ve seen some slowdown on inflation, but that’s also because energy has fallen in July. The cost of fuel, gas, those things had all kind of dropped down, but they also are predicting that this could make the Fed keep their rates steady and we should not anticipate any sort of increase, which is the biggest thing because the last thing we want is increase going on. Stability works, but we don’t need it to rise. And so we are seeing a little bit of good news on that as far as the inflation goes.
Now, I feel like every month it’s just going to bounce around until this Iran conflict gets sorted out, but it is good news. And what I did see is we saw a flurry of activity the last couple weeks. We did sell more homes, I think in the last two weeks than we did in the month before. And part of that has to do with part of inflation hasn’t. I don’t feel like it feels as bad as it did 60 days ago, and consumers are really sensitive to that. When inflation is jumping up, when fuel and gas is at seven bucks a gallon, people get really nervous and the fear kind of locks in and they don’t make a decision. And so as they’re starting to see a little bit of stability in the energy market with food and groceries, that people are starting to move and actually start getting some activity going because even I saw the financial reports for a lot of these tech companies, they posted some pretty good earnings and people made some good stock bonuses and we’re starting to see a little bit of stability, which is good because it’s all about consumer confidence.
There is so many buyers on the sideline right now, they’re just confused in what to do.

Henry:
Who could blame them if the market is so confusing?

James:
Yeah. What we’re hoping for is just stability and inflation. If we can get it to where it stops going on this rollercoaster ride, I mean, what do you think, Henry? You sell a lot of property. When I see stability on those fronts, it’s much easier to move a deal.

Henry:
Yeah. When people are comfortable with what’s happening in the market, then the transaction volume goes up, people take action. And I think I’m curious at how inflation is going to impact interest rates over time because the Fed just chose to keep interest rates where they’re at. But if you look at the vote, it was actually voted on nine to three. So there were three people who voted to actually raise interest rates. And so that to me says that they’re planning on rates going up as long as things remain the same. That’s the forethought I’m giving that. And that’s again, going to cause more of an affordability problem and that’s going to keep more people out of the market, which is going to seem like things are slowing down. But at the same time, housing prices have continued to rise. And so that’s what I mean by it’s confusing is because it’s unaffordable, it’s scary.
We don’t know if interest rates are going to go up causing more unaffordability, but somehow prices keep rising. So somebody’s buying and it’s our job as investors to make sure we stay very local in the data so that we can have a clear understanding of who the buyers are, what they’re buying so that we can position ourselves to be able to provide that product to them because transactions are happening. And I don’t want everybody to listen to all this and think it’s so doom and gloom in the real estate market. People are making money out here in real estate, but the people that are making money are the ones that are studying the data, they’re studying their market, they’re seeing who the customers are that are actually transacting. How are they transacting? Where’s that money come from and what are they buying and how can I provide that to them?
It’s business 101, but it’s harder now. You can’t just buy anything at a discounted price anymore, throw it on the market and make money. You used to be able to just say, “Hey, if I get something at a 30 or 40% discount, I’m going to be able to make money.” That’s just not the case anymore. It’s very, very niche.

Kathy:
Yeah. Inflation is bad. It’s still bad. It has come down, but what I want to really emphasize is that the growth rate of price increases has slowed. The prices haven’t come down. So the consumer is extremely stretched. And even though oil prices, energy prices have fallen, they’re still up 14% from a year ago. Now, how many people got a 14% raise? The inflation is still 3% above last year over that. How many people got a 3% raise? If companies aren’t doing as well, then they’re not maybe going to be giving the raises. Or if you’re self-employed, it’s hard to give yourself a raise if you’re just trying to make ends meet. So I think if we look at the consumer, they are stretched. I see it every day. And when I say the consumer, there’s a tale of two worlds, right? We have some people who are doing just fine and don’t notice the difference in the cost of eggs.
They don’t even think twice about it. But if you are on a fixed income or you are on an hourly wage, you feel it and it’s painful. So just even the concept of buying a house is so out of reach, but they’re focused on rent and that’s hard too. That’s hard too. And for those of us who are buy and hold investors, we’ve got to pay attention to that consumer because that’s our customer, right? That’s who’s going to be renting from us. And how are they doing? How is their health? It’s tough. It is tough. So the more that we can find those properties, get discounts, find cheap properties and renovate them at a good price, be good at that and provide that affordable housing, we are helping people. We’re solving a problem, which is living. So I like to put that message out there for landlords who are truly providing a service.
I could just speak for us in some of the properties that we bought, we got them cheap, so we’re able to rent them for less. We’ve always focused on that niche of the worker. How are they going to afford to live and how can we provide that for them?

James:
Why this is so important is we’re trying to look, as investors, we’re trying to look down the road, what is the market going to look like in 12 months? Because when you’re buying deals today, they’re really good buys. We’re buying stuff for substantially cheaper than we were 12 to 24 months ago. And that’s what we have to keep focused on as an investor is, okay, what do we think is going to happen in 12 months and what is that going to look like? And what this says is the July CPA inflation report shifted the outlook for the Federal Reserve next monetary policy meeting. They were saying that according to the CME FedWatch tool, the market now sees a 61.9% probability of rates remaining current, and that was only at 51% a day ago. And so we want stability. If rates were going to go up in 12 months, I’m going to want to buy even deeper today.
But if I think there’s stability, what I don’t want to do is pass on deals that were great deals, but my fear dictated my decisions
Because fear will make us do bad decisions. It will make us sell something for too cheap. It will make us pass on good opportunities. And these are things that we want to pay attention to because we got to go, what is it going to look like? Because you can’t stop buying when you’re an active. Henry is an active operator. Kathy, you’re in a lot of deals. If you stop and you go on the sidelines, I heard people say this for the last 24 months, “I’m taking a break. I’m going to wait.” You never time it right, ever. But if you consistently buy, you can get a consistent average through because you’re going through all the waves. If you pull out, that’s what I’ve learned over 20 years investing is don’t pull out. Be cautious, but you can’t get all the way out the door because if you do, A, you’re out of touch with the market, you’re not in the market anymore, but then you’re jumping usually back in when it’s too late again.
I don’t

Kathy:
Know. It depends on the asset class. I have a lot of respect for people who just sat it out from 2020 to 2024, 25 even because they could just see the bubble inflating and then it was going to take some time for it to deflate and they’re just now coming. I mean, I know a guy who just kind of sold all his stuff when he saw it peaking and he just went on vacation for a few years. I think that’s okay, depending on your asset class, if you’re really aware. But James, that’s not for you. You can’t stop. You’re not stopping.

James:
James.

Kathy:
We buy

James:
Everything, right? We buy apartments, we buy dirt, we buy houses. And so yeah, did we buy a lot of dirt the last two years? Absolutely not. We had already bought the dirt. We were getting through the projects, but there’s an opportunity in every market and that’s where you have to kind of pivot and go, “Okay, well, what I was buying doesn’t work anymore, so now I need to go buy this.” And for us as investors, if you want to be a professional investor to stay in the market, you have to pivot and you got to shift things around. I’m even starting to look at new construction now, which I’ve never bought, but I’m like, “Oh wow, there’s some really good buys out there.” There’s some

Kathy:
Great deals. Yeah.

James:
We don’t have identities as real estate investors, right? It’s like, I’m the short-term rental person. I’m the flipper guy. It’s like, no, no, no. How do you spread the money out and balance it out? And you want to do that when you’re seeing reports like this. Now, this is just one month. It’s a blip in the month, but we have to see what happens in August and in September and what goes on with this conflict because I think fuel is up right now. So this inflation report could also look a lot different for August. And so I think these are things to just watch, stay in the middle of and make sure that you kind of adjust your buy box based on actual data like Henry’s saying, not your gut. I’m

Kathy:
Going to be more positive now and say this is great. It’s great that we didn’t see inflation shoot up when it really could have. And that’s what we were hearing in the headlines. That’s why people are freaking out and scared because it was. I mean, even the Fed was saying we’re probably going to raise rates for a couple times because inflation’s looking bad. So I will end this part of the story saying, good, at least it is not runaway inflation.

James:
No, and hopefully it stays consistent. That’s what we’re looking for. Keep dropping. That’s what we want. Well, we got JP Morgan spending a lot of money, inflation’s settling down. See, it’s all Sunshine and Bunnies going for.

Kathy:
It’s a good day. It’s

Henry:
Always a good time to buy in my book, James.

James:
Yeah, exactly. You got to keep buying. You got to keep buying. So thanks for listening to On the Market. We will see you guys next time.

As a business owner, it’s natural to look for ways to save money. So, when business owners look at appointing a registered agent, they think they can assign the role to anyone — a spouse, a sibling, a friend or even themselves. On paper, that may seem practical, but what most businesses don’t realize is that it carries unnecessary legal, financial and operational risk. 

I see the fallout of bad registered agent assignments up close in my line of work. 

In Florida, missing an annual report deadline can trigger a $400 late fee, and repeated failure to maintain accurate company information can cause the government to actually shut down your business. In California, there is a $250 penalty for missing company information, and many other states have similar fines, which can cause huge headaches and, if not dealt with, can lead to dissolution. 

This is a big reason why business compliance firms like mine exist. Businesses that have been hurt by compliance violations don’t want to make the same mistake twice, so they choose to assign a formal, accountable party to serve as their registered agent. 

What is a registered agent?

A registered agent is an individual or professional service assigned to receive legal documents, tax forms and government information on behalf of the business organization. A registered agent is required for most LLCs, corporations and other formal business entities. Effectively, the registered agent serves as the official point of contact between your business and the authorities, ensuring nothing important is missed. While at times this may seem like a glorified courier service, it’s actually a critical role within your business infrastructure.

For example: 

• If you receive a deadline-sensitive notice, the registered agent helps make sure it reaches the right person quickly.
• If you miss an annual report deadline, the registered agent receives state reminders or delinquency notices, allowing you to act before late fees, penalties or dissolution occur.
• If your business falls out of good standing, the registered agent receives warnings from the state so you can correct the issue before suspension or your business is forced to close.
• If you move offices, the registered agent provides a stable address so that official notices are not sent to an old business location.
• If your business gets sued, the registered agent receives the lawsuit, summons or subpoena and forwards it quickly so you have time to respond.

Whoever you choose needs strong communication and organizational skills. If a registered agent misses an important notice or forgets to deliver it, the business can face severe compliance issues and even legal consequences.

Myths about registered agents

A registered agent does not need to be a lawyer, accountant or other licensed professional. While some attorneys or accounting firms may offer registered agent services, the registered agent role itself is separate from legal or accounting work and should not be treated as an add-on service. It is a completely separate role. Drawing that distinction can help establish a clear system for handling these important documents. 

Another common misconception is that naming someone as your registered agent makes them an officer of the business. It does not. They do not control your company, have the power to sign documents on your behalf or make decisions. 

Lastly, some business owners assume that hiring a registered agent means their company is fully covered from a compliance standpoint. In reality, a registered agent does not take over all of your business obligations. You are still responsible for filing annual reports, paying required fees, maintaining tax compliance and keeping your company information up to date with the state. A registered agent can, of course, help support the process by receiving notices and, in some cases, reminding you about important deadlines, but they are a point of contact, not a replacement for proper business compliance management.

Who should be my registered agent?

You should carefully choose a registered agent who can reliably support your business’s compliance, privacy and communication needs. Having someone you know and trust might seem like a good idea, but friends or family members aren’t always available and don’t always treat the role with the respect or professionalism it deserves. They might just see it as a favor. 

Likewise, being your own registered agent might seem like a cost-effective way to make your money go further — and who will care more for your business? But there are some drawbacks. Namely, you need to be the one reacting to the documents, and you are hamstrung by your physical office when you should be focused on other aspects of your business.

Why choosing the right registered agent matters

A registered agent does more than help your business stay compliant. They help create the legal and administrative infrastructure your company needs to operate with stability. Every strong business has systems. A registered agent is part of the system that ensures official documents, legal notices, tax correspondence and state communications reach the right person at the right time.

The right registered agent serves as a reliable point of contact for your company. Instead of having important notices received by whoever happens to be home, available or checking the mail, the business that uses a professional registered agent has a formal channel for receiving critical information. That channel helps separate casual communication from official communication.

A professional registered agent also supports better internal accountability. When an official document arrives, there should be a clear process: receive it, record it, notify the business owner and make sure the right person takes action. That process becomes especially important as the business grows and more people become involved in operations, accounting, legal matters or administration.

Choosing a registered agent might seem like a small decision compared with hiring employees, winning customers, managing cash flow or developing a growth strategy, but small infrastructure decisions shape how well a company handles pressure and ensure that your business organization continues to run smoothly.

As a business owner, it’s natural to look for ways to save money. So, when business owners look at appointing a registered agent, they think they can assign the role to anyone — a spouse, a sibling, a friend or even themselves. On paper, that may seem practical, but what most businesses don’t realize is that it carries unnecessary legal, financial and operational risk. 

I see the fallout of bad registered agent assignments up close in my line of work. 

In Florida, missing an annual report deadline can trigger a $400 late fee, and repeated failure to maintain accurate company information can cause the government to actually shut down your business. In California, there is a $250 penalty for missing company information, and many other states have similar fines, which can cause huge headaches and, if not dealt with, can lead to dissolution. 

Bars are getting flatter. Vodka waters are replacing vodka seltzers, tequila and soda is now tequila and water. It turns out Gen Z is fussy about the fizz in their drinks.

Non-carbonated drinks made up 38% of new product launches in the $22 billion premixed drink market last year, up from 27% in 2021, according to Bloomberg. “Because there’s no bubbles, you don’t feel so full,” says Emily Aprigliano, a 26-year-old New Yorker who switched to canned cocktails after trying non-bubbly Surfside on a beach trip. “You can’t even taste the alcohol, so they just kind of go back easier.”

Surfside, made by Philadelphia-based Stateside Brands, is now one of the fastest-growing alcohol brands in the US, built around the trademarked slogan “No Bubbles, No Troubles.” Boston Beer followed two years later with Sun Cruiser, which is now propping up sales as its Truly seltzer brand slows down.

Smaller startups saw the shift coming even earlier. Jill Morrison started sipping spa water with a splash of vodka on a Dominican Republic vacation, then launched Mom Water with her husband in southern Indiana in 2021. “The competitive landscape is tenfold what it was five years ago,” says co-founder Bryce Morrison. The brand is on track to top 1 million cases this year.

Even hard seltzer giant Gallo is adapting. The company launched Lucky One Lemonade with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, which sold 1 million cases in its first seven months, a sign the Millennial-era hard seltzer boom is waning.

Bars are getting flatter. Vodka waters are replacing vodka seltzers, tequila and soda is now tequila and water. It turns out Gen Z is fussy about the fizz in their drinks.

Non-carbonated drinks made up 38% of new product launches in the $22 billion premixed drink market last year, up from 27% in 2021, according to Bloomberg. “Because there’s no bubbles, you don’t feel so full,” says Emily Aprigliano, a 26-year-old New Yorker who switched to canned cocktails after trying non-bubbly Surfside on a beach trip. “You can’t even taste the alcohol, so they just kind of go back easier.”

Surfside, made by Philadelphia-based Stateside Brands, is now one of the fastest-growing alcohol brands in the US, built around the trademarked slogan “No Bubbles, No Troubles.” Boston Beer followed two years later with Sun Cruiser, which is now propping up sales as its Truly seltzer brand slows down.

Smaller startups saw the shift coming even earlier. Jill Morrison started sipping spa water with a splash of vodka on a Dominican Republic vacation, then launched Mom Water with her husband in southern Indiana in 2021. “The competitive landscape is tenfold what it was five years ago,” says co-founder Bryce Morrison. The brand is on track to top 1 million cases this year.

Even hard seltzer giant Gallo is adapting. The company launched Lucky One Lemonade with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, which sold 1 million cases in its first seven months, a sign the Millennial-era hard seltzer boom is waning.

If you look at where enterprise AI dollars are flowing, the disparity is stark. Software engineering teams are adopting autonomous agents almost overnight, while revenue operations — sales, marketing and go-to-market (GTM) — are barely scratching the surface.

As a CEO who spends time coding in Claude, building in Cursor and prototyping in Vercel, I understand why developers have embraced these tools so quickly: they’re incredible. Yet, when I talk to other executives about the relative quiet across their sales organizations, I find they usually draw the wrong conclusion.

They assume large language models (LLMs) simply aren’t mature enough to handle complex commercial motions. But that diagnosis misses the real bottleneck. The reason coding agents thrive while GTM agents struggle isn’t an intelligence problem. It’s a context problem. 

The context trap: Codebases vs. commercial reality

In order to understand the gap, you have to look at the environments these two agents live in. A coding agent runs over a codebase. That codebase is self-contained, machine-readable and fully accessible inside a single repository. Every piece of context the model needs to write the next line of code exists right in front of it. The agent doesn’t need to consult external systems or guess what a third party thinks about its architecture.

A go-to-market agent, by contrast, faces a fragmented reality. Building an actionable account plan requires synthesizing past conversation histories, buyer profiles, executive tenure, funding rounds, technology stacks, earnings signals and open job postings.

Even if an enterprise centralizes its internal data across calls, emails and CRM records, that first-party view represents only a fraction of the necessary picture. For decades, companies assumed they were capturing account context by forcing sellers to log details into CRM fields. But reps rarely log complete information, and whatever does get entered is filtered through what revenue leaders call “happy ears” — the natural tendency of salespeople to interpret prospect interactions far more favorably than reality warrants.

More importantly, critical external signals like funding events, executive turnover and tech stack changes sit entirely outside internal systems. Without that external intelligence, an autonomous agent is operating blind.

The fragmentation and identity resolution nightmare

Solving that context gap isn’t as simple as plugging external data streams into your CRM. You first have to confront a messier internal reality: Revenue data inside most enterprises is notoriously chaotic. CRMs are routinely crippled by duplicate entries, inconsistent records and messy naming conventions. A single enterprise customer might appear as “Cisco” in a CRM, “Cisco WebEx” in call transcriptions and “AppDynamics” inside an outreach platform.

If an AI agent attempts to reason across this disconnected dataset without an identity resolution framework, it inevitably draws flawed conclusions. It might pull conversation notes from one entity, apply financial metrics from another and deliver a next-best action that is confidently wrong.

Look at how vertical AI has succeeded in sectors like the legal industry. Specialized platforms like Harvey and Legora don’t rely on generic LLMs alone; they ground their models in domain-specific reference architecture and verified legal datasets. GTM AI requires the exact same foundation. A generic model does not understand B2B commercial logic out of the box. To generate real value, an agent must be anchored in a unified reference data layer.

Democratizing the infrastructure layer

Historically, unifying first- and third-party data required massive engineering teams and multi-quarter custom implementations stuck behind IT backlogs. But as intelligence layers mature, that dynamic is evolving. When underlying data architecture is exposed through flexible APIs and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations, even non-technical business leaders can construct custom AI workflows in an afternoon.

Recently, I spoke with the CEO of a 50-person mid-sized business who reached out regarding a quick API integration question. He wasn’t a software engineer or a RevOps builder. Yet, using Claude Code paired with ZoomInfo’s API infrastructure (GTM.ai), he was able to build a custom account-scoring and enrichment application tailored specifically to his team prospects.

A few years ago, he would have been forced to rely on whatever rigid software interface a vendor built for him. Instead, he was interacting directly with a unified data layer inside Claude to automate his team’s specific commercial logic. This reflects a massive structural shift: moving away from traditional software applications where hundreds of thousands of users log into a single interface, toward millions of tailored, natural-language interfaces grounded in live data.

Grounding the future of AI GTM

In the end, the advice I give to other revenue leaders is always the same: Don’t confuse a slick demo with a viable enterprise strategy. Right now, dozens of lightweight AI sales tools are stalling out because they built polished interfaces without a durable data foundation beneath them. An autonomous agent is only as intelligent as the context layer feeding it. If you bolt an agent onto fragmented data, you get unreliable outputs every time.

The real unlock in go-to-market won’t come from writing cleverer prompts or buying newer software wrappers. It comes down to doing the foundational architecture work — unifying internal systems, anchoring them to verified external intelligence and giving agents a coherent view of the world. The leaders who capture the promise of enterprise AI won’t be the ones waiting for foundation models to magically solve B2B complexity. They will be the ones who build that prerequisite context layer today so their agents have the complete picture required to deliver.

If you look at where enterprise AI dollars are flowing, the disparity is stark. Software engineering teams are adopting autonomous agents almost overnight, while revenue operations — sales, marketing and go-to-market (GTM) — are barely scratching the surface.

As a CEO who spends time coding in Claude, building in Cursor and prototyping in Vercel, I understand why developers have embraced these tools so quickly: they’re incredible. Yet, when I talk to other executives about the relative quiet across their sales organizations, I find they usually draw the wrong conclusion.

They assume large language models (LLMs) simply aren’t mature enough to handle complex commercial motions. But that diagnosis misses the real bottleneck. The reason coding agents thrive while GTM agents struggle isn’t an intelligence problem. It’s a context problem. 

For decades, innovation has been measured mostly by speed: who launched first, who built the next breakthrough, who disrupted an industry before anyone else could. Speed still matters. But after several years leading Celleste, the company behind the world’s first chocolate bar made from cell-cultured cocoa butter, working to strengthen the long-term future of cocoa, I’ve found myself asking whether speed still tells the whole story.

Working at the intersection of deep science and one of the world’s most established industries has gradually changed the questions I ask about innovation. Our conversations extend far beyond the lab, into manufacturing, global supply chains, consumer trust and the resilience of an industry facing a rapidly changing world. What interests me is that these conversations aren’t unique to cocoa. The same themes are surfacing across artificial intelligence, healthcare, energy and manufacturing.

From building what’s next to preparing for what’s next

Businesses today look very different from the ones many innovation strategies were built for. Artificial intelligence is reshaping business models in months rather than years. Climate volatility is forcing companies to rethink long-term planning and access to critical resources. Cybersecurity has become a boardroom issue, and geopolitical uncertainty keeps exposing vulnerabilities across global supply chains.

As the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report puts it, “today’s biggest business risks are increasingly interconnected. Technology, geopolitics, environmental pressures and economic uncertainty no longer exist in separate categories. They reinforce one another, creating an environment where change is constant rather than occasional.”

In an environment like that, moving fast is no longer enough. Companies also need to become more resilient. A question I’ve found myself asking is this: Does this innovation make the broader ecosystem more resilient, or only my company? That question is becoming just as important as questions about speed or novelty.

The strongest innovations answer a problem the industry already has

That raises a second question: Which innovations are actually built to last?

In my experience, the answer has less to do with how novel an idea is, and more to do with where it starts.

Some innovations begin with remarkable technologies searching for the right application. Others begin with a challenge the industry already knows it needs to solve. The latter often find their way into the market more naturally because they strengthen systems that already exist rather than asking industries to reorganize themselves around something entirely new.

It can also become one of the shortest paths to product-market fit. When the problem already exists and is already understood by the people who will use your solution, you are not creating demand from nothing. You are meeting demand that was already there.

This also changes disruption. We often associate innovation with replacing what came before. But some of the most valuable technologies may do something different: help established industries evolve without losing what already works. That requires understanding not only the technology, but the infrastructure, economics and relationships around it. For founders, that means spending as much time understanding the system they are entering as the solution they are building.

So ask yourself: Are you building toward a problem your industry already recognizes, or a solution that is still looking for one?

Resilience depends on how fast you can adapt, not only on what you built

There’s a third piece, and it has less to do with the innovation itself than with the organization behind it.

However well designed something is on day one, conditions eventually move: a supplier changes, a regulation shifts, a market reacts differently than expected.

The real test often comes later: how quickly the team behind it can adapt. That capacity comes from the people and habits of a company that treats change as normal rather than an emergency.

Organizations that build this capability are often the ones whose innovations remain valuable long after launch. So the question isn’t only whether what you built can withstand change. It’s whether your team can move fast enough to keep up with it.

That adaptability also depends on how organizations make decisions. Teams need enough structure to stay focused, but enough flexibility to question assumptions when reality changes. Building that balance early can prevent companies from becoming locked into decisions that made sense under yesterday’s conditions. In fast-moving industries, the ability to reconsider, learn and adjust may become one of the most important competitive advantages a company can build.

Resilience, then, is not something you design once. It is a capability you keep building. The companies that understand this will be better positioned not only to respond to disruption, but to find opportunity inside it.

What this means for founders building today

The next time you review your roadmap, don’t only ask what a feature does for your company. Ask what it also does for the industry you’re part of. It’s a small shift in the question, but it changes what you end up building.

Speed and boldness still matter. They always will. Resilience isn’t a replacement for either. The real question is whether what we build will continue creating value as the world around it changes.

For decades, innovation has been measured mostly by speed: who launched first, who built the next breakthrough, who disrupted an industry before anyone else could. Speed still matters. But after several years leading Celleste, the company behind the world’s first chocolate bar made from cell-cultured cocoa butter, working to strengthen the long-term future of cocoa, I’ve found myself asking whether speed still tells the whole story.

Working at the intersection of deep science and one of the world’s most established industries has gradually changed the questions I ask about innovation. Our conversations extend far beyond the lab, into manufacturing, global supply chains, consumer trust and the resilience of an industry facing a rapidly changing world. What interests me is that these conversations aren’t unique to cocoa. The same themes are surfacing across artificial intelligence, healthcare, energy and manufacturing.

From building what’s next to preparing for what’s next

Businesses today look very different from the ones many innovation strategies were built for. Artificial intelligence is reshaping business models in months rather than years. Climate volatility is forcing companies to rethink long-term planning and access to critical resources. Cybersecurity has become a boardroom issue, and geopolitical uncertainty keeps exposing vulnerabilities across global supply chains.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In 1872, Toronto printers went on strike demanding a nine-hour workday. The standard at the time was 12 hours a day, six days a week. Their strike inspired annual parades across Canada, which an American labor leader witnessed in Toronto in 1882 and took back to New York. By 1894, both Canada and the United States had declared the first Monday in September a national holiday. Labor Day exists because workers fought for the right to stop.

One hundred and fifty years later, the people least likely to take it are the ones who need it most. The holiday exists. The permission to actually stop does not. The advice arrives every Labor Day weekend like clockwork. Disconnect. Set boundaries. Do not check email. Step away and come back refreshed.

For most people running at high output, that advice lands like a joke. They step away, the quiet arrives, and something that was manageable on a Wednesday becomes unbearable on a Saturday. The anxiety rises. The restlessness kicks in. By Sunday evening the dread is already there. And by Tuesday morning they are back at their desk wondering why four days off left them feeling worse than four days of work.

The long weekend did not cause that. It just removed the one thing that was keeping it manageable.

The bill that was always coming

Think of the body like a business running on a line of credit it never checks.

Every sprint draws on it. Every deadline pushed through. Every Saturday worked. Every vacation cut short. The account keeps getting drawn down and the body keeps extending the credit because the adrenaline, the dopamine and the cortisol are co-signing every charge. The system stays in performance mode. The work gets done. The numbers look fine.

Then the long weekend arrives and the co-signers clock out.

That is when neuroscientist Bruce McEwen’s concept of allostatic load becomes impossible to ignore. The measurable biological cost of sustained stress does not disappear while you are pushing through it. It accumulates. And the moment the chemistry that was covering it drops, the balance comes due all at once.

The quiet did not create the anxiety. It just stopped covering the bill.

And because almost nobody teaches people to understand what that actually feels like, the most common response is to decide the weekend was a mistake.

So they go back to work.

Going back to work teaches the wrong lesson

Opening the laptop on Saturday resolves the discomfort almost immediately. Dopamine reactivates. The target reappears. The anxiety lifts.

But what just happened is the brain made a payment on the credit card with next week’s balance.
Every time that happens, the pattern tightens. The brain learns one more time that the solution to discomfort is output. The tolerance for stillness shrinks. The person who could sit with a quiet Saturday for a few hours can barely manage an hour the next time. The executive who used to enjoy long weekends starts dreading them by Thursday. The cost carries forward unprocessed and the next Labor Day hits a system that is already more depleted than the last one.

This is the pattern that post-success psychology is built around. Not a single crash. A cycle that compounds with every loop that runs without a real landing. According to NIH research on chronic stress and the HPA axis, sustained output leads to a predictable biological progression: elevated cortisol followed by exhaustion and suppressed cortisol levels. The crash is not a choice. It is a sequence. And pushing through it with more work does not stop the sequence. It charges the card again and delays the statement until the system stops asking nicely.

What actually helps

Do not wait until Friday to slow down. The system running at full output does not have an off switch. Going cold into a long weekend is not rest. It is a crash with a holiday label on it. Put something on the calendar each day that counts as effort without draining anything. A walk with a destination. A conversation that matters. A task that closes a loop without opening a new one. Not doing nothing. Teaching the system how to wind down instead of forcing it to stop cold.

Do not be surprised if you get sick. This is one of the most reliable and least discussed consequences of running too hard for too long. While you are pushing, cortisol tells the immune system to wait. The moment you stop and the chemistry drops, the immune system starts collecting on everything that was deferred. You stop. You immediately feel terrible. Your throat hurts. You are exhausted in a way that sleep does not seem to touch.

Most people assume this means they are unhealthy or not taking good enough care of themselves. They are not entirely wrong. But no supplement fixes a pattern that never gets a real recovery built into it. The sickness is not a sign you should have kept going. It is the deferred balance arriving. That is not an interruption of recovery. That is what recovery actually looks like when the account has been overdrawn for too long.

The restlessness that shows up on a Saturday is not a productivity problem. It is the pattern asking to be noticed. Most people respond by opening the laptop. That teaches the pattern that the only way to be heard is to get louder. Which is exactly what it does. Every long weekend it gets a little harder to sit with, a little heavier to carry into the week that follows.

This weekend, instead of reaching for the laptop when the restlessness hits, write down what it is interrupting. Not a task list. Not a business problem. What specifically feels unbearable about not working right now. One sentence. You do not have to solve it. You just have to name it. That is the beginning of understanding which pattern is running the discomfort, and what it actually needs instead of another sprint.

Labor Day was never just a day off. It was a declaration that the people doing the work deserved the right to stop without it costing them everything.

That right still exists. Most people are still paying interest on the last time they tried to use it.

In 1872, Toronto printers went on strike demanding a nine-hour workday. The standard at the time was 12 hours a day, six days a week. Their strike inspired annual parades across Canada, which an American labor leader witnessed in Toronto in 1882 and took back to New York. By 1894, both Canada and the United States had declared the first Monday in September a national holiday. Labor Day exists because workers fought for the right to stop.

One hundred and fifty years later, the people least likely to take it are the ones who need it most. The holiday exists. The permission to actually stop does not. The advice arrives every Labor Day weekend like clockwork. Disconnect. Set boundaries. Do not check email. Step away and come back refreshed.

For most people running at high output, that advice lands like a joke. They step away, the quiet arrives, and something that was manageable on a Wednesday becomes unbearable on a Saturday. The anxiety rises. The restlessness kicks in. By Sunday evening the dread is already there. And by Tuesday morning they are back at their desk wondering why four days off left them feeling worse than four days of work.