If you ask Nandan Nilekani, the key to being successful in today’s ever-changing job landscape is simpler than you think.

Nilekani co-founded Infosys, an information technology (IT) and consulting firm, in 1981, serving as CEO from 2002 to 2007 before creating Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric identification system, in 2009. His contributions to the tech landscape helped him reach billionaire status, with a current net worth of $3.6 billion, according to Forbes.

As tech and AI changes workflows, and anxiety around the future of work looms, Nilekani says people should focus on building the soft skills that artificial intelligence can’t replicate.

“Be curious, connected and relevant,” he told LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky in a recent episode of “The Path” newsletter. “I get up every morning wanting to learn new things, and I keep my mind open.”

It’s a mantra that’s propelled Nilekani throughout his career. The 69-year-old grew up in India in the ’60s and early ‘70s, where parents had strict rules for their kids’ careers, he said: either be a doctor or an engineer.

Nilekani chose engineering, but went to a college his father didn’t approve of, and chose electrical over chemical engineering, again, to his father’s dismay. He graduated from IIT Bombay in 1978 and became obsessed with a new technology, mini computers, shortly after.

He got a job at Putney Computer Systems, the company developing the new tech, under N.R. Narayana Murthy, who would later call on him to co-found Infosys, where Nilekani currently serves as a non-executive chairman.

Nilekani credits most of his success to his hunger for information and the excitement that learning new things brought him, insisting that curiosity made him successful, not a love for business. 

“I’m an accidental entrepreneur,” he told Roslansky. “It’s not that I set out my life to be an entrepreneur, but once I got into it, I realized this was my calling.”

Being eager to learn is an invaluable soft skill, according to successful executives like fellow billionaire Mark Cuban and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

“I can pretend that I’m gonna be able to predict where AI’s going and the exact impact on the job market, but I’d be lying, I have no idea,” Cuban said in October. “But I do know that I am gonna pay attention, and be agile, and be curious, and be able to adapt.”

For Jassy, staying connected and relevant about new skills and the world around you is essential for a prosperous career — those who choose not to are bound to be “stagnant,” he said in a July 2024 video posted by Amazon. 

In 2022, 19% of American professionals were in jobs that are the most exposed to AI, in which the most important tasks may be assisted or replaced by AI, according to Pew Research Center. As that number potentially rises with tech innovation, Nilekani believes soft skills will keep people on a fast-track to success.

“The future is about what only humans can do,” he said. “Empathy, compassion, connecting the dots … Remain curious, connected and relevant.”

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As the U.S. continues to face a shortage of available homes, some may be looking at those occupied by “empty nesters” as an incoming source of inventory. As older residents begin to downsize, the thinking goes, the millions of homes they currently own will fill the deficit, thus bringing housing costs down. 

However, those units aren’t likely to be the solution, Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, tells CNBC Make It. 

The reason is simple: Empty nesters — which Zillow defines as “residents ages 55 or older who have lived in the same home for 10 or more years, have no children at home and have at least two extra bedrooms” — don’t live in the same places where younger generations want to be, recent research finds.

“These empty-nest households are concentrated in more affordable markets, where housing is already more accessible — not in the expensive coastal job centers where young workers are moving and where more homes are most desperately needed,” Divounguy said in the report.

Around 20.9 million households fit the definition of empty nesters in 2022 and out of the 50 biggest U.S. cities, they have the greatest concentrations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; and Cleveland, Ohio. But the cities with the most people under 44 are San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado, Zillow reports.

“Unless we see more businesses and workers relocating to the Midwest, the big flow of housing coming is probably not going to do much to help those markets,” Divounguy says.

And of course, the homes empty nesters are vacating might not be the same properties young people are looking for, especially if they are large or relatively expensive for the area.

So, what will actually move the needle? The “only viable solution for improving housing affordability” is new construction in the cities facing the largest shortages, Divounguy says. 

However, there are a number of roadblocks preventing construction from keeping up with demand, including the rising costs of building materials, lot size requirements, density restrictions and project reviews that can take up to 24 months. 

“When you prevent supply from keeping up with demand, you end up with runaway prices and affordability deteriorates,” Divounguy says.

Lowering costs for builders will be key to making progress in this area, Divounguy says. Changes to zoning laws and streamlining building permit approvals may also help push things in the right direction.

“If you look at places that are less regulated,” he added, “like in the South, builders have been able to lean into density in order to continue building houses at a price point that meets buyers where they’re at.”

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The New Year often brings with it visions of a clean slate — an energizing opportunity to start living our best lives. Thanks to what behavioral economists call the “fresh start effect,” this time of year leaves many of us feeling extra optimistic about making real, meaningful changes. 

Come January 1, we imagine we’ll be ready to tackle those to-do lists, hit our goals, and become the ideal selves we’ve always imagined we could be. Hence the resolutions, diets, and exercise plans.

And yet, despite our best intentions, many of us struggle to see New Year’s resolutions through. There’s often a gap between our ambitions and our reality. 

We bite off more than we can chew. We don’t realize until we’re well on our way that we lack the time, energy, skills, equipment, or support to achieve the goals we’ve set. Or maybe we’ve just signed ourselves up for too many all at once. 

It might be that we pick the wrong goals to begin with — goals we think we ought to pursue rather than ones we truly feel motivated to achieve. 

Regardless, there is a better way. 

The Life Audit is a desire-based system that gets to the core of what you really, truly want from life — not what you think you should do, but what you really want to do. 

A Life Audit is an exercise in self-reflection that helps you uncover your core values and deepest desires. 

As I explained in my recent book, “The Life Audit: A Step-By-Step Guide to Discovering Your Goals and Building the Life You Want,” it’s a gentle tool for introspection combined with a practical, action-oriented system that has helped me and many readers turn wishes into reality year after year. 

The audit is steeped in best practices from UX research and design thinking — the same techniques successful tech companies use to figure out how to create a winning product. 

I’ve seen it happen firsthand, having spent a decade of my career working in user research at companies including Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I drew on these approaches to create a method that can help you figure out how to architect the life you want, step by step.

The Life Audit has three main parts. Each phase is intended to help you go deeper in your self-reflection, allowing you to get closer to uncovering your true desires and to figure out how to turn them from wish to reality.  

The beauty of the Life Audit is that it doesn’t require any expensive equipment — it’s something you can do from the comfort of your home, at any time.

1. Dream (the generative phase) 

Give yourself an hour with a stack of sticky notes and a sharpie — or index cards and a pen, or scraps of printer paper and your kid’s markers. Whatever you have! 

On each sticky note, list one wish or desire you have for your life. Wishes can be big and future-focused, like “Write a book!” or immediate and quotidian, like “Be more patient.” 

Be open to whatever comes up, and try not to question or judge. This is the time to explore and be curious about your wishes. Aim for 100 wishes in an hour.

2. Learn (the analysis phase) 

Now that you have your hundred wishes, group them into themes. Go through the notes one by one, and start moving them around to put together wishes that feel related.

Themes might include spirituality, career, community, family, hobbies, creative pursuits, health, etc. But they might be different — your themes will be unique to you. 

Once you’ve mapped your wishes into clusters, step back and reflect on what you see. What do your wishes tell you about yourself? Are you surprised by what’s come up? 

Notice, too, if any of these wishes feel more like “shoulds” than “wants.” These may be wishes that others — whether it’s society, your parents, or your boss — have for you that are not your own. Feel free to discard those. It’s your Life Audit. 

Pay attention to areas that you expected to be ripe with wishes but aren’t. This may be a sign that they’re less important to you, or that you’re tending to them already. 

3. Plan (the action phase) 

One reason resolutions often fail is because we take on too much all at once. The Life Audit is intended to reflect wishes you have for your entire life. Even if you tackle this exercise around New Year’s, your time span is longer, so you don’t have to commit to them all right now.

Choose three to five wishes you’d like to concentrate on this year. You might pick based on how feasible, exciting, or urgent they feel. It’s up to you.

For each wish, ask yourself if you have the right resources and support in place to see them through. If you don’t, what changes might be needed? For example, things that can help include:

• Having an accountability partner, like recruiting someone to go to that yoga class with you every week
• Breaking your wishes into smaller goals that can be achieved incrementally, like committing to reading a paragraph a night as a start to a greater goal of reading more
• Getting really specific in your wishes, like deciding to plan two catch-up dates a month rather than saying you want to spend more time with friends

Classic resolution-setting fails to take into account that we are human: fickle and emotional and prone to getting in our own way, even when we don’t mean to. 

With its emphasis on introspection, best practices from the world of user research, and practical, rational, action-planning, a Life Audit can help you uncover hidden wishes and chart a realistic path forward. 

Ximena Vengoechea is a user researcher, writer, and illustrator, and the creator of the Life Audit. She is the author of several nonfiction books, including ”The Life Audit: A Step-By-Step Guide to Discovering Your Goals and Building the Life You Want″ and forthcoming companion ”The Life Audit Journal.” Her writing has appeared in Inc., The Washington Post, Newsweek, Forbes, and Fast Company. She also writes the Letters from Ximena newsletter.

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A child’s resilience is deeply rooted in the resilience of their caregiver, as decades of research demonstrate. Still, the implication that caregivers need to prioritize their own wellbeing can feel counterintuitive in a society that often tells us our needs as parents, and especially as mothers, come last.

I can relate. When my three children were young, I believed being a good mom meant pouring every ounce of myself into my children. No sacrifice was too great. 

In striving to do and be everything for my kids, I often neglected my own needs, like sleep, downtime and time with friends. I accepted that living in a state of stress was simply the tax of parenting well. 

But then I interviewed hundreds of families and several leading researchers for my book “Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It.”

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One of the most important things I learned is that, when we sacrifice ourselves, we risk losing what our children need most: a strong and resilient caregiver.

Here are the key things I wish I’d known earlier about building my own resilience as a parent:

When parents are overwhelmed, it’s hard to be the patient, present caregiver our kids need. That’s when “proximal separation” can sneak in — a term psychologists use to describe when a parent is physically present but emotionally unavailable because of stress, depression or burnout. 

Our children are remarkably perceptive. But they may misinterpret our distracted or irritable moments as signs that something must be wrong with them. When parents struggle emotionally, children are more likely to face emotional challenges, too, studies find.

Here are a few ways to bolster your personal resilience as a parent:

• Check in with yourself daily. Ask yourself, “How am I feeling today, really?” Naming emotions is the first step to managing them. If you’re struggling, reach out to a friend for support. As psychiatrist Dr. Ned Hallowell puts it, promise yourself to “never worry alone.”
• Schedule stress reducers. Just 15 minutes of quiet downtime, focused on meeting your own needs, can leave you feeling recharged. Notice what refills your cup — talking with a friend, reading a book, sipping a cup of tea, taking a bubble bath, listening to a meditation app — and make time to engage with it daily.
• Seek professional help if needed. Therapy or counseling is an investment in your and your family’s health. If you’re in crisis, you can reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (800) 273-8255, or the Crisis Text Line has crisis counselors available via text (send “HOME” to 741741), WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. For longer term care, reach out to your doctor for a referral. 

We all know that for a young person to thrive, they need a sturdy adult in their lives. But for sturdy adults to thrive, they need sturdy adults, too. 

As a young parent, I used to think I had to handle everything alone. But parenting isn’t meant to be a solo act — it’s a team sport. The myth of the “do-it-all parent” is a fast track to isolation and burnout. 

Leaning on friends, family, or a support group not only eases your load but strengthens your emotional health. Research has found that just one hour a week spent with supportive people can lower stress and make parenting feel less overwhelming. Don’t be afraid to create your own group.

• Issue an invitation. Text a few parents you feel close to and say you want to build a crew of support. You’ll meet just one hour a week for connection and encouragement.
• Be consistent. You might build this group into an “article club” or “book club,” and spend twenty minutes discussing a news article or novel and the remaining time sharing the ups and downs of your parenting journeys. Or, you might make this a weekly walking club. If getting together is hard with young kids, schedule a weekly Zoom during nap time. The venue or theme of the meeting doesn’t matter. What matters is offering each other consistent support. 
• Choose your people wisely. For this support group to work, you need to feel safe. Find people you’re comfortable being open with and who, in return, are willing to be open with you. What makes this intentional time feel supportive is having people in your life who make you feel seen and heard, just as you try to do for your children.

Another valuable way I’ve found to feel more resilient is to build community. Here are some ways to get started: 

• Normalize carpooling. Arrange shared rides for school drop-offs, sports, or extracurriculars with local parents.
• Start a meal train. Join forces with five to six other families. Each family cooks one large meal weekly to share, freeing up other evenings.
• Organize a cheering squad. If you or a parent friend can’t attend a child’s event, assign yourselves as cheering surrogates, and swap updates and videos with each other. I’m so grateful to the parents who send me videos of my children and updates for the games I cannot attend.

Collaboration isn’t just practical; it builds a sense of security around your child. It shows them that they have a deep bench of support, no matter what. And you do too. 

Remember, taking care of yourself is taking care of your child. When you nurture your wellbeing, you create a stronger foundation for everyone in your family. Parenting is one of life’s greatest challenges — and its greatest joys. By leaning into relationships, you’ll build the resilience you and your child need to thrive.

Jennifer Breheny Wallace is an award-winning journalist and author of “Never Enough: When Achievement Pressure Becomes Toxic — and What We Can Do About It.” After graduating from Harvard College, Wallace began her journalism career at  CBS “60 Minutes,” where she was part of a team that won The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism. She is a Journalism Fellow at the The Center for Parent and Teen Communication at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Follow her on Instagram @jenniferbrehenywallace.

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In 2022, actor Tom Holland decided to try a “dry January” and give up alcohol for 31 days, but the challenge was harder than he’d expected.

“I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how much I was struggling without booze in that first month — and it really scared me,” Holland said on an episode of the Rich Roll podcast in October. “I decided, as a sort of punishment to myself, that I would do February as well as January.”

The second month turned out to be even more intense for the Spider-Man star.

It “was no easier. If anything, it got a little bit harder,” the 28-year-old said during the podcast. “I was starting to kind of panic, thinking, ‘Damn. I have a bit of an alcohol thing.’”

This pushed Holland to stay sober even longer, especially after having a conversation with his doctor about the state of his liver. His struggle with giving up alcohol coupled with the damage it seemed to be doing to his body prompted him to commit to yet another alcohol-free month.

Once March rolled around, he “started to feel a little bit better, but was still really struggling.” So, he set a goal to stick to his sobriety until his birthday.

“I said to myself, ’If I can make it to June 1st, which is my birthday, and I can do six months without booze, I will have then proved to myself that I don’t have a problem. I’m just young and enjoying a drink.”

Holland was successful, and by then was enjoying his sobriety so much that he didn’t want to drink again until the year was over.

“I started sleeping better. I was handling stressful situations better. My relationship was better. My relationship with my family was better. My relationship with my work was better,” he said.

“By the time I’d crossed that annual mark I was done. I was like, ‘I’m never gonna drink again because this is the best version of myself.’”

Though Holland didn’t consider himself “a bad drunk,” he said, as an actor, “you always have a reason to be drinking. Or, I felt like I always had a reason to be drinking.”

And he didn’t limit himself with how much he was drinking: “I wasn’t the type of person that could nip to the pub for a pint,” he said. “I wanted to lock the door behind me.”

But once Holland committed to his sobriety, his support system kept him honest. “A real ally” of his is Robert Downey Jr. who has appeared on the big screen alongside him many times, and has been sober for more than 20 years himself.

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