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When my son was in sixth grade, he looked at me one afternoon in our garage while I was unloading groceries and said something I never expected to hear. He said, “Mom, you’re not going to make me go to college, are you?”I paused, unsure of the answer.He was 12 years old. College wasn’t exactly around the corner, and I figured he’d change his mind a dozen times before then.Looking back, he wasn’t telling me what he wanted to do. He was telling me who he was. School never energized him the way it would later energize his younger sister.…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gregory Brooks, a 57-year-old based in Rochester, New York. It’s been edited for length and clarity.After reluctantly resigning from my technology services job at a community college in May, I was terrified to be out of work.I’m not a young guy anymore. Starting over at 57 feels like a mix of humiliation and frustration — and it feels harder than when I was younger. I think for the most part, young professionals are more willing to work late, sacrifice work-life balance, and hustle to climb the corporate ladder. I’m not looking…

Today’s tech titans are using similar financial tactics to Enron, but that doesn’t mean they’re careening toward disaster, one AI guru says.Enron, an energy supplier and trading powerhouse, collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001 after it was revealed to be a fraud. But it was also a story of three things, Ram Bala, an associate professor of AI and analytics at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, told Business Insider in an email this week.The corporate giant shifted debt off its balance sheet using special vehicles, employed mark-to-market accounting to book future sales projections as immediate revenue, and used circular…

It can be hard to stay focused on your priorities when constant pings and competing projects are pulling you in different directions.That’s why Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi developed a simple system for keeping his biggest priorities front and center. His most basic productivity hack is to identify five things he needs to accomplish each quarter, and use it as his North Star of where he spends his time.”I pick things that I can make significant progress on in that quarter,” Alkarmi said. “And so it becomes a filter for how I prioritize my time.”He shares those five priority areas with…

Mark didn’t have a six-figure salary when he started investing in real estate.The Florida-based former police officer, who prefers not to share his last name for privacy reasons, said he never earned more than $52,000 a year. Still, he built a 25-unit real-estate portfolio in less than five years and retired from his day job at 50.One tool that helped him get started was something he already had: equity in his home.To fund his first investment property, a $100,000 single-family house in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Mark opened a home equity line of credit, or HELOC, against his paid-off primary residence.His…

At Boston Consulting Group, consultants of the future might look a lot like those of the past: generalists with business acumen.The difference, said BCG veteran Mel Wolfgang, is that the firm increasingly sees its consultants developing some of the technical capabilities once concentrated among specialists in areas such as IT architecture and software development.Wolfgang got a better sense of that shift when he took over as North America chair in May. He asked how many of BCG’s traditional consulting staff had skill sets similar to those of its technical employees.What Wolfgang found surprised him.”I’ve actually kind of got double the…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Leslie Cohen, a 52-year-old real estate development and operations professional in the Boston area. Business Insider has verified her identity and background. This story has been edited for length and clarity.I started my career as a project manager in the commercial real estate industry and rose through the ranks to chief operating officer. This summer, however, I decided to put my career on pause to spend time with my kids. One is going to be a junior in college this fall, and the other one is heading off to college.I’m planning…

Some days, Tamara Johnson wonders how her life changed so rapidly.Johnson, 58, made six figures in an executive leadership position, and when her mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and dementia in 2017, she moved from New Orleans to Virginia, where she continued to work while caring for her mother.Three years after her mom’s death in 2020, Johnson’s husband suffered a series of catastrophic medical events. To care for him full-time, she took a temporary leave and then quit her job this year. She relied on income from her job’s deferred resignation program and her savings to pay for his…

Sara Marye wanted to get more serious about the benefits she offered.Several months after promoting a part-time employee to full-time status at her school-curriculum small business in 2024, she wanted to ensure it remains an attractive place to work.”If I want to keep her, I need to give her reasons to stay,” said Marye, an educator turned entrepreneur in 2015 when she started The Stellar Teacher Company. The employee had been working there since 2021.Marye thought about what she could afford that she could add on top of the existing flexible perks. Offering a 401(k) plan was the answer, a…

Alex Harman was on the last stretch of his trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania when he stopped on a steep part of the mountain. He had gone to bed at 3 p.m. the day before and set his alarm for midnight to start hiking early.Now the sun was coming up, so he stopped to have a snack and take in the view, alongside around 30 of his McKinsey colleagues, before continuing on to the summit.”The top was great,” he said, “but that moment there where we all stopped and just watched the sunrise was very cool.”Harman,…