The Daily Cultivation - Monday, November 17, 2025

What caught my eye in how we learn, live, and grow — and why it matters.

Welcome to The Daily Cultivation — where learning meets living, one idea and one observation at a time. Think of it as a quick, curated pause in your feed: what caught my attention, what it made me think about, and why it matters. It’s part reflection, part commentary, and part conversation — all about how we’re learning, leading, and growing in real life.

Sweden Looked at Childhood on Screens and Said: ‘Yeah… We’re Done Here.”

I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the deep presence that screens and educational technology have in our school systems. I’m deeply interested in Sweden’s reversal on screens, and their recommitment to deep learning. After a decade of assuming digital tools would accelerate education, they realized the opposite was true: students were more distracted, less able to sustain focus, and struggling to think critically in the presence of constant digital stimulation. Their response mirrors the work at the center of my practice: designing environments that support human learning, not interrupt it. And I definitely wouldn’t mind these learnings showing up in American school systems to better benefit our kids.

Helicopter Parenting 2.0: When Mom Moves to College With You

I was astonished to read this article from The Atlantic. The rise of “trailing parents”—moms and dads who follow their kids to college physically, emotionally, and digitally—signals a deeper shift in how adulthood is unfolding. Instead of giving young adults space to stumble, self-correct, and build the confidence that comes from doing hard things alone, overinvolved parents are unintentionally blocking the very growth they want for their kids. And consider the implications for the workforce once these children graduate. Will their parents call their boss next? I advocate strongly for the opposite approach: learning only sticks when people have room to try, fail, and integrate experience into judgment.

The Godfather of AI says LLMs are mid - is he right?

I’m really interested in AI and its impact on our economy and our job market. Yann LeCun, one of the original architects of modern AI, is pushing back hard against Silicon Valley’s obsession with ever-bigger language models. While Meta and the rest of Big Tech race to scale LLMs into “superintelligence,” LeCun argues they’re fundamentally limited and believes the future lies in world models that learn from real environments, not massive text piles. So this WSJ take made me stop and think - what’s the endgame if LLMs tap out on their learning? And I learned a new term: “world model.” Check it out.

The Exit Interview: Women Are Done with Unfulfilling Corporate Paths.

Women are walking away from traditional corporate paths at record rates and building careers that finally align with their values, energy, and lived reality. With nearly half of new U.S. businesses in 2024 founded by women, the trend is clear: corporate structures aren’t flexible enough, secure enough, or meaningful enough for a generation that wants purpose, autonomy, and room to grow. This shift reflects exactly what I teach through my work—people thrive when they stop contorting themselves to fit outdated systems and instead build careers that reflect who they are, what they value, and how they want to live. Women aren’t opting out; they’re opting into careers that feel like them.

The Future of Work Has Range. So Should You.

When speaking to organizations or advising clients, I’m often asked to explain what a portfolio life is. FuturaLab has a really succinct description of what it is, how you can build it, and why it will likely overtake the typical 9-5 in future years. The current model of work can’t keep pace with how people actually live, learn, and earn today. A portfolio life lets people diversify their income, protect against volatility, experiment with passions, and build a career that adapts as quickly as the world does. The reality is, people thrive when they stop trying to fit into outdated career lanes and start designing work that aligns with their curiosity, capacity, and lived experience.

Still here? You’re my kind of curious.
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