Like many people, Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett followed a parent’s career path: His father owned a stock brokerage firm before later embarking on a political career.

Needless to say, the younger Buffett stuck with investing and did quite well. When he stepped down as CEO at the end of last year, Berkshire Hathaway was worth more than $1 trillion. But crucially, Buffett said, he didn’t receive any parental pressure to follow that path.

“He said that — which was very important — he had no feeling that I should follow in his footsteps. Period,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick in “Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy.”

On the contrary, Buffett recalled his dad paraphrasing a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”: “The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

In other words, you have to find your own calling. It’s advice Buffett said he passed down to the next generation of his family.

“I told my own kids … look for the job you’d take if you didn’t need a job,” Buffet said. “And that’s basically what my dad was telling me.”

Buffett has frequently said that he latched onto his lifelong fascination with making money at an early age.

“I found the answer when I was five,” said Buffett, who spent his youth selling gum and delivering newspapers, among other enterprises. He bought his first stock at age 11. “And it was just interesting to me — way more interesting to me than it was to my dad.”

For people who need to graduate from kindergarten before finding their raison d’etre, finding the kind of job you’d do without a paycheck may require some trial and error — along with taking some jobs just to survive, Buffett said.   

“Economic realities, I acknowledge, may interfere with that kind of search,” he wrote in his 2021 letter to shareholders. “Even so, I urge the students never to give up the quest, for when they find that sort of job, they will no longer be ‘working.’”

One good bet, Buffett has said, is to gravitate toward high-quality people you love to work with.

“Who you associate with is just enormously important,” he said at the annual meeting of Berkshire shareholders in May. “Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that, but you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.”

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Tech giants like Amazon and Meta are overhauling their performance review systems, and experts say the changes could signal even more layoffs or firings ahead.

Amazon, which on Jan. 28 announced 16,000 layoffs on top of its 14,000 cuts in October, is asking corporate employees to submit three to five “accomplishments,” Business Insider reported last month, citing people familiar with the matter and an internal document viewed by BI. The report notes the company has asked questions to that effect before but says this marks the first time Amazon has “explicitly formalized” its system across its entire corporate workforce around individual accomplishments.

At Meta, which in January announced layoffs affecting 1,000 employees, workers will now be categorized into the top 20%, a middle 70%, a lower 7% and the bottom 3%, BI separately reported, citing an internal employee memo. Top performers with “truly exceptional impact” will now see rewards of up to 300% of their base bonus.

“We’re evolving our performance program to simplify it and placing greater emphasis on rewarding outstanding performance,” a Meta spokesperson told Make It. “While our employees have always been held to a high-performance, impact-based culture, this new direction allows for more frequent feedback and recognition in a more efficient way.” Amazon did not provide comment to Make It.

Stack ranking, as in Meta’s system, isn’t uncommon in large companies, particularly in tech. “It’s not just stick, it’s also carrot,” says Saikat Chaudhuri, faculty director of the Management, Entrepreneurship, & Technology Program and the Entrepreneurship Hub at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Nor is it new (or all that surprising) for an employer to ask workers to recap their accomplishments for the year when doing their performance reviews.

But the changes are also unfolding against a backdrop of mass layoffs from both firms, and across the broader economy. Job cuts announced last month hit their highest January total since 2009, according to a report released last week by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

When it comes to performance review crackdowns, “the most common reason companies do this is that they really want to shrink headcount,” says Peter Cappelli, professor of management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources.

“It’s cheaper to fire people for poor performance than it is to lay them off,” Cappelli says.

Executives sometimes believe supervisors aren’t tough enough on “finding people who aren’t performing and doing something about it,” Cappelli says. Overhauling performance mandates, in tandem with changes like return-to-office orders and heightened surveillance to enforce those mandates, could mark an attempt to “regain power and control” following the employees’ labor market of the Great Resignation.

Companies may still be continuing to “right-size” after overhiring during the pandemic tech boom, Chaudhuri adds. During that time, “companies needed employees; they just couldn’t keep up,” Chaudhuri says. “Now, that’s not the case; now they want the highest performers.”

Companies may want staffers to spell out their accomplishments because “reporting relationships have been rearranged” after layoffs hit middle management ranks, Chaudhuri says. Managers suddenly taking on reports from other laid-off managers may not know the full extent of their new reports’ work.

Leaders might also be taking a page from Elon Musk’s book, Chaudhuri says. DOGE during its cost- and job-cutting drive asked federal workers to submit a list each week detailing what they got done.

Pressure from shareholders and the race to beat out competitors in the AI wars factor into the efficiency drive.

“This is an era of ferment,” Chaudhuri says, referring to AI. “Each business at every turn, especially when there’s a disruption, has to evaluate how they can run in the leanest fashion.”

U.S.-based employers announced 108,435 job cuts last month, up 118% from 49,795 cuts announced last January, and up 205% from 35,553 cuts announced in December, according to the Challenger report. (Roughly 40% of last month’s cut announcements come from Amazon and UPS alone.) The unemployment rate steadily ticked upwards over 2025 and hit a four-year high of 4.6% in November. 

In this context, the changes to performance reviews could have far-reaching repercussions. Fear of additional layoffs down the road and heightened scrutiny around day-to-day performance expectations could put the pressure on employees to work harder, Chaudhuri says.

It could also nudge employees who might be reviewed poorly to leave on their own to avoid potentially being cut, he adds. While this could save the companies some money on possible severance costs in the short term, the overhaul could ultimately be costly for the companies’ reputations.

When the labor market swings back in employees’ favor, companies will “have to make the incentives so strong for people to overlook the reputational downsides that might happen from this,” Chaudhuri says.

For now, Chaudhuri interprets the message tech companies are sending their employees to be this: “I need to work long hours, I need to put my best foot forward. It’s that time again.”

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When our kids come to us with their boredom, there is often an impulse to meet them with irritation, frustration and guilt.

“You have so many toys! How can you be bored?” “Bored? Here’s a list of chores.” “When I was a kid, I played for hours without complaining.”

As a parenting expert who has spent 10 years working with busy families on independent play, I’ve seen the same pattern repeatedly: parents either offer a list of activities or tell kids to figure it out themselves. Neither works. The first creates dependence. The second feels like a rejection.

The truth is, we can’t, and shouldn’t, entertain our children constantly. Over-involvement leads to burnout for parents and robs kids of essential developmental skills. 

So the next time your kids tell you that they are bored, try these five phrases to encourage more independent play: 

The first question you can ask yourself when you kid says “I’m bored” is: “Have I truly connected with my child today?”

Not “I made your lunch” connected or “I nagged you to brush your teeth” connected. Real eye-contact, undistracted, even-for-two-minutes connection. Something like, “Tell me more about the show you watched this morning. You were laughing so hard!”

Many children are used to being told what to do and how to do it, and when no one is directing them, they feel lost. Sometimes, “I’m bored” just means “I need you,” or, “I don’t know what to do without guidance.” 

A quick connection reset can help fill their emotional cup enough for them to feel more comfortable and confident playing on their own. 

Are they missing something basic, like food, rest, movement or emotional regulation? “I’m bored” can also be their body’s way of saying, “Help, I’m off.”

When was the last time they ate? Have they been sitting still for two hours? Did they wake up at 5 a.m. and refuse a nap? Sometimes, “I’m bored” is actually “my blood sugar dropped,” “I’ve been cooped up inside,” or, “I’m exhausted but don’t know how to wind down.”

Before redirecting them to play, try: “I’m wondering if your body needs something first. It’s almost lunchtime. Are you feeling hungry?” Or, “We’ve been inside all morning. Would it feel good to run around the backyard for five minutes?” 

Once those needs are taken care of, you can hand the reins back to them.

This phrase flips the script. Now they’re the ones declining your help, not being denied it.

It’s playful, takes the heat off, and assumes they already know what they want — they just haven’t figured it out yet.

This works because you’re giving them a framework and inviting them to collaborate, not solving the problem for them.

You’re asking them to check in with themselves: What are they actually in the mood for right now? And both answers — either repeating the idea they already know, or wanting to try something new — are fine. You’re just teaching them how to identify what they want.

Over time, their problem-solving skills will improve. They’ll learn to say “I’m bored. Okay, do I want to do something I already know, or try something new? Maybe I’ll rebuild that fort from last week. But this time, I’ll add a tunnel.”

Once you’ve confirmed that connection and basic needs are met, acknowledge that sitting with boredom is uncomfortable.

You can add: “I’m going to be [folding laundry or making dinner] right here if you want to check in.” With this approach, they aren’t being left alone with their feelings, and you’re giving them space to work through it … but with you as a steady presence.

What you’re really teaching is how to generate purpose from the inside out, not from a toy, a screen, or from you. Your child might need to check in a few times: “Is this okay?” “Can I use this?” 

Children need to learn that boredom isn’t a crisis, and that they can use the feeling to inform what they can do next.

Lizzie Assa, MsED, is the founder of the popular Substack and Instagram, The Workspace for Children, and the author of ”But I’m Bored.”

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For years, bedtime was the most stressful part of my day. No matter how early we started or how carefully I planned, evenings always felt chaotic.

I’ve heard the same story from many of the parents I’ve worked with, and it’s understandable. Bedtime is a major emotional transition that most of us were never taught how to navigate.

But as a conscious-parenting researcher who has studied over 200 kids, I’ve noticed a clear pattern: The happiest, most emotionally well-rounded children have parents who follow a predictable routine that lowers anxiety and strengthens connection. Here’s what they do differently.

Many parents head into bedtime expecting resistance, and children can sense that tension almost immediately.

Parents who experience smoother evenings aren’t attached to how long the routine takes or how perfectly it unfolds. When you soften your grip on the outcome, your child’s nervous system will follow.

Remember, if bedtime takes 90 minutes instead of 30, but your child falls asleep feeling safe and calm, that’s still a win.

Stalling, clinging, tantrums and irritability at bedtime can be signs of separation anxiety. Parents who understand this slow down the final moments of the evening. They offer physical closeness or quiet presence before saying goodnight.

Even 10 to 20 minutes of intentional connection can make a difference. From there, you can set clear but warm boundaries: “I’m here with you now. After two books and a cuddle, it’s time to turn the lights out.”

Many bedtime battles are simply about pressure. When children feel they’re expected to “fall asleep” on command, their nervous systems shift into alert mode, making rest harder.

Parents with the easiest nights stop making sleep the goal. They focus on creating calm conditions. This makes it more likely for our bodies to settle naturally.

To a child, bedtime can feel like an abrupt ending. You can ease this transition by emphasizing what comes next: “We’ll finish this in the morning,” or, “We’ll snuggle again when the sun comes up.”

This helps children experience bedtime as a pause, not a loss, reducing anxiety and resistance.

Some parents also create this bridge by ending the night with a simple point of connection. They might ask, for example, “What are you most excited for tomorrow?”

Safety is the signal that tells a child’s nervous system it can finally stop bracing and start resting. Without it, even the tiredest body stays alert.

You can reinforce safety by saying things like: 

• “Today was hard. Tonight was hard. And I’m still here.”
• “You didn’t have to be perfect today. You just had to be you.”
• “I’m here. You can rest.” 

Finally, and this might be the most important one: Emotionally attuned parents regulate themselves. Evenings are when you are most depleted and therefore most likely to react from stress rather than intention.

So pause before engaging. Take a few deep breaths. Ask yourself whether you’re carrying stress from the day into the moment. Settle yourself first, then support your child.

Reem Raouda is a leading voice in conscious parenting and the creator of the BOUND and FOUNDATIONS journals, now offered together as her Emotional Safety Bundle. She is widely recognized for her expertise in children’s emotional well-being and for redefining what it means to raise emotionally healthy kids. Find her on Instagram.

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Five years ago, I quit my unfulfilling 9-to-5 job as a higher education administrator and began selling digital products on Etsy. 

Today, I make an average of $14,000 per month in passive income from seven income streams, including my Etsy store, my blog, real estate investments and stock appreciation. I also recently became a self-made millionaire.

It wasn’t an easy road, and I definitely had a few missteps along the way. But I learned how to find my niche, run a business and build the life I want doing what I love.

Here’s my best advice for starting a successful side hustle:

One common mistake people make is trying to juggle so many income streams that they start to lose focus. But most people I know who’ve built a profitable business didn’t start out creating their income streams all at the same time.

I’ve met many new side hustlers who start dabbling in stocks, launch a Shopify store and then look at real estate — all at the same time. This usually results in burnout, overwhelm and even debt. 

Instead, build one solid stream, master it, then move to the next. 

When I first started my side hustle, I made a few bucks here and there, but nothing to write home about.

It wasn’t until nine months after my launch that my Etsy store started making thousands of dollars a month and eventually allowed me to quit my full-time job. 

Success doesn’t happen in a single viral post or overnight launch. It comes from showing up, adjusting and staying in the game long enough to see your knowledge and efforts compound.

When I started learning about business, I tried to DIY everything myself. I would watch free content on YouTube and Instagram, and read books from the library. But after I bought a course about how to sell on Etsy, things started to shift. 

Looking back and knowing myself more, I think “learning the hard way” took too long. I would try to learn, struggle alone, not see any progress, then lose motivation. I didn’t want to keep learning because I wasn’t seeing any results. 

But when I invested a small amount of money into a course and a community of people working on the same thing, I was able to learn, struggle, get help and achieve small wins. My motivation would go up, and I would want to repeat the cycle. 

I’ve met many business owners who have a lot of money, but they don’t have time. It’s important to be strategic in creating the life you want. 

For example, you can sell goods at local farmers’ markets on the weekends. But before setting up that side hustle, it’s important to figure out when those markets are open and ask yourself if you’re willing to give up weekends to sell your products. 

Of course, you can hire employees to help you eventually. But that will also cut into your profits, and might not be possible in the beginning.

The most successful people I know have a growth mindset. They believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. 

Because of this foundational belief, they aren’t afraid to step into unknown territories and learn. On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset don’t believe in their ability to grow and learn, so they never try, which leaves them feeling stuck. 

Building multiple income streams and becoming a millionaire isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about staying focused, learning as you go, and not giving up. 

You’ll make mistakes (I’ve made plenty), but with the right mindset, each mistake teaches you something that gets you closer to your goals. Keep going, tweak what’s not working, celebrate the wins, even the small ones, and remember: Progress beats perfection every time.

Rachel Jimenez is an entrepreneur, professor and mom of two. She has a passion for helping others achieve their personal, professional and passive income goals. She runs an Etsy store and a blog, Money Hacking Mama, where she shares financial wisdom and practical advice for women navigating their careers, businesses and life.

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