Hustle. Rise and grind. Fake it till you make it. Today’s work culture believes the only way to get ahead is to put your nose to the grindstone and maximize the hours in the day. The harder you work, the more successful you become, right?

On the flip side, burnout rates are on the rise — people’s bodies are physically revolting in a desperate attempt to tell them to rest. No one knows this better than our guest, author, and digital anthropologist, Rahaf Harfoush. Her concept of “productivity propaganda” highlights how our obsession with working harder is actually making it harder to work. After hustling with her pedal to the metal for years, her body gave out on her and forced her to step back and do something she wasn’t familiar with: slow down and listen.

At Waste No Potential, we have a story of an unlikely teacher. Whenever it got busy at our old office and it felt like things were about to go off the rails, an uncanny thing recurred: a ladybug showed up. Crawling on a meeting room wall or across someone’s keyboard, the slow-moving critter made everyone pause and reflect. Being forced to take a second to breathe didn’t affect our work negatively — it improved it. It was then, in a moment of zen, we learned the way of the ladybug.

We don’t quote Ferris Bueller very often, but when we do, we say, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”