Hi hi,

Right now, I’m in Malta facilitating a workshop for 250 Senior HR professionals. The topic? How AI is transforming the way we learn, consume information, and build organizational culture. It’s a conversation that feels especially timely, considering Amazon’s recent announcement that they expect employees to return to the office five days a week. In many ways, this reflects a labor market that’s slowly tipping power back toward employers—a stark contrast to the autonomy workers enjoyed during the height of remote work.

There’s a lot driving this shift. Part of it is the stubborn tradition of equating physical presence with productivity, an outdated management style that’s deeply resistant to change. And let’s not forget the pressure from the commercial real estate sector, which is struggling to keep office spaces full. But for many employees, this mandate feels like a step backward. They’ve experienced increased productivity from home, along with the flexibility that’s allowed them to reshape their work-life balance. Forcing a return to the office won’t just be a logistical challenge—it’s going to be an emotional and cultural one, too.

At the heart of this tension, I see two major issues: a lack of intentional culture design and a serious gap in manager training.

When companies shifted to remote work, many simply digitized what they were doing in person. The staff meeting became a Zoom call, and the office banter moved to Slack. But here’s the thing: that’s not how culture works. Technology doesn’t just facilitate our work—it shapes it. The tools we choose, the features we use or ignore, even the language we adopt—these are all powerful signals that influence how culture is created and maintained. In a digital environment, culture has to be explicit. You can’t rely on the osmosis of in-person interactions to build it. This is something I emphasize in my Digital Norms for Happy Teams course, because it’s a process that everyone needs to contribute to, actively and intentionally.

The second issue is skills. Managing hybrid or fully remote teams requires a different skill set than managing people in a physical office. It changes the way you conduct one-on-ones, how you mentor your team, and how you create psychological safety. But instead of reflecting on their own shortcomings, many leaders are choosing to point fingers at their employees, demanding they return to the office as if that alone will fix everything. It won’t.

And then there’s the labor angle. Amazon’s decision to enforce a strict return-to-office policy is already hitting legal roadblocks in the EU, where labor protections are strong. This highlights something crucial: the importance of collective organizing. Unions and worker advocacy groups are essential in shaping better working conditions, especially in a market where employers are attempting to reassert control. The lesson here is clear—workers aren’t powerless, and when they come together, they have the ability to resist sweeping policy changes that don’t serve their interests.

In This Newsletter:

1. Spooky Season
2. Emily and the Myth of American Exceptionalism
3. War and What We Owe Each Other

Spooky Season (Hoa Hoa Hoa or LaLaLa?)

Look, I know the world feels a little—okay, a lot—batshit crazy right now. Amid all the chaos, it’s easy to feel weighed down by the relentless tide of bad news. But even in times like these, it’s crucial to carve out moments of joy, to find those small rituals that anchor us. Which (WITCH?) brings me to October, my favorite time of year: spooky season!

I'm more of Hoa Hoa Hoa (Twilight/Paranormal Fall) than La La La (Gilmore Girls, New England Pumpkin Spice Fall). If you're totally lost they are both sounds from the respective sound tracks of each show.

I'm trying this new poll feature, for lulz. Help me out?

October is my annual excuse to fully immerse myself in all things magical, mysterious, and macabre. All month long, I dive into books, films, and TV shows—some new discoveries, but mostly old favorites—as I count down to Halloween. For me, Halloween is more than just costumes and candy; it’s the Pagan New Year, a powerful time to celebrate surviving another turn of the wheel. It’s a moment to pause, count our blessings, and sit with our grief as we tune in to our intuition on the night when the veil between worlds is said to be thinnest. Samhain, the witch’s New Year, offers us a chance to reflect on endings, make peace with what we’ve lost, and honor the cyclical nature of life and death.

There’s something grounding about this time. It invites us to connect not just with our ancestors, but with our own inner worlds. And on top of that, October is one of the few moments when witches—those powerful, intuitive, knowledgeable women—are not only acknowledged but celebrated. It’s almost subversive, how a society that has spent centuries vilifying these figures now gleefully dresses up as them every October. For a brief moment, their power is reclaimed, even if just through pop culture.

Every year, I follow a ritual of my own: rewatching a set of movies, shows, and books that have become my October staples. And where do I start? Twilight, of course. I know, I know—it’s absurd. The sparkly vampires. The overwrought dialogue. Kristen Stewart’s strange facial expressions. The sepia tones that wash over everything. It’s so bad it’s genius. My friend Hitha and I have an entire text thread dedicated to Twilight TikTok memes, and it’s a source of endless hilarity. TITSOAKB. BWTHHYBL. (IFYKYK)

Very few things in life have had the staying power to make me laugh as hard as this iconic scene:

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The entire thing is just...I don't know, like a tiny glimmer of an innocence that we used to feel before the entire world was embroiled in a state of perma-crisis, genocide, and climate catastrophe and we had to emotionally process the reality of living through an extinction level event while also knowing that the solutions are all right there but go against interests of corporations and special lobby groups, so we'll just all slowly suffer while killing each other and the planet. OK? LET ME HAVE THIS.

From there, my spooky season playlist is a mix of high and low. Some favorites:

TV Shows Worth Your Time:

• A Discovery of Witches – Magic, history, and romance collide in this lush supernatural drama.
• Motherland: Fort Salem – A fresh take on witchcraft where women wield power, and it's unapologetically queer.
• WandaVision – A brilliant exploration of magic as a metaphor for grief.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Classic. Enough said.
• The Magicians – Fantasy with a sharp, sometimes painful, edge.

Guilty Pleasures (Because We All Need Those):

• Charmed (the original) – Nostalgic witchiness at its best.
• The Vampire Diaries/The Originals/Legacies – Basically the holy trinity of supernatural teen drama.
• Shadowhunters – Messy, but fun.
• The Secret Circle – A short-lived series that still has a special place in my heart.

Movies I Watch Every Year:

• Practical Magic – Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as witch sisters? Yes, please.
• The Craft – The original girl-power witch movie.
• Kiki’s Delivery Service – A sweet, magical coming-of-age story.

Books That Bring the Magic:

• Three Sisters Trilogy by Nora Roberts – Classic Nora Roberts with a witchy twist.
• A Discovery of Witches (yes, again, but the books are better than the show).
• Circe by Madeline Miller – A beautiful retelling of a powerful sorceress.
• Psychic Witch – One of the best books I’ve read on developing focus and intense concentration.
• Taschen’s Witchcraft – A stunning collection that explores the history and art of witchcraft.

I’m always looking for new things to read, too, so here’s what’s on my list this year (though I can’t vouch for them just yet):

• A Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan
• Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
• Witch Fire by Anya Bast

What about you? Do you have any go-to October favorites? Hit reply and let me know—I’m always on the lookout for new spooky season rituals!

On Emily in Paris & The Myth of American Exceptionalism

As many of you know, Emily in Paris has never really been my thing. On the surface, it’s fun—quirky outfits, dreamy Parisian backdrops, and lighthearted drama. But there’s something about Emily herself that has always rubbed me the wrong way, and it took me a while to pinpoint exactly why.

Then I came across an interview with Marylin Fitoussi, the show’s costume designer, and everything clicked. Fitoussi, a French native herself, openly admits she finds Parisian fashion “boring,” and in that one statement, the whole vibe of the show came into focus for me. Emily’s wardrobe is more than just a personal style—it’s a way for her to impose her “otherness” on Paris, to stand out in a way that feels almost defiant. And while that’s a valid way to engage with a new city, for me, it misses the most transformative part of travel: the way a place can change you.

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In four seasons, Emily hasn’t really let Paris change her. She still doesn’t speak the language, hasn’t explored anything beyond the postcard-perfect Paris we see on screen, and has made exactly one French friend, whom she promptly betrays (Season 1 spoiler alert!). The city doesn’t open her up to new ways of thinking or living—she’s there to conquer it, not to be shaped by it.

What bothers me most about Emily is that she always has the answers. She’s a midwestern marketing exec with no real experience in French culture or luxury markets, yet she consistently outshines her French colleagues in every scenario. It’s always Emily saving the day, Emily coming up with the perfect pitch, Emily knowing more than anyone else in the room. There’s no humility, no learning curve—just an unshakable confidence that feels more like American exceptionalism than personal growth.

And that’s where Emily in Paris diverges from other stories in this genre. Think about Sabrina, Under the Tuscan Sun, or Eat Pray Love. In those films, the protagonists are changed by the places they visit. They learn, they struggle, they evolve. The whole point of these stories is the journey—both external and internal. But Emily? Four seasons in, and she’s still the same. She’s not transformed by Paris; she’s determined to make Paris bend to her will.

There’s something deeper here, something about the way American media so often frames travel as a form of conquest rather than a path to transformation. It’s as if the mark of a successful trip isn’t how much you’ve grown or what you’ve learned, but how well you’ve imposed your own identity on a new place. And that, I think, is why Emily in Paris never quite sat right with me. It’s all about domination, not discovery.

Asking A Real Expert: Lindsey in Pareeeeee

I reached out to my friend Lindsey Tramuta—an American who’s called Paris home since 2006, and someone who’s become as Parisian as they come. She’s the author of The New Paris and The New Parisienne (where, full disclosure, I make an appearance), and I wanted to know if my take on Emily in Paris hit the same nerve for her. Unsurprisingly, her response didn’t disappoint:

In the end, while Emily in Paris might be easy to dismiss as fluffy entertainment, it still offers us a moment to reflect on our own travel behaviors and expectations. Because the real magic of exploring a new place isn’t just in the sights you see, but in the ways it changes how you see yourself.

What We Owe Each Other

As I write this, bombs are falling in Beirut. Over 2,000 people have been killed, and one million more are displaced—300,000 of them children. A refugee camp in Gaza has just been bombed, killing the head of UNRWA operations. And in Damascus, my homeland, the bombs keep coming. My family and friends in both Beirut and Damascus are terrified, fearing for their lives. I've been terrified everyday for the past year.

This isn’t just happening in some far-off place that’s easy to dismiss. The grief isn’t distant—it’s here, in the lives of your neighbors, your friends. So much of the Arab diaspora is in deep pain right now, carrying the weight of watching our homelands burn while being told, through policies and silence, that our lives—our pain, our people, our dignity, our safety—don’t really matter.

And yet, believe it or not—gasp—I have the ability to extend my deep compassion and sympathy to the families impacted by the October 7 attack, to the hostages still missing, and to the immense pain being felt, even by those whose views I don’t share.

But sometimes, it feels like this compassion only flows one way, like I’m not entitled to it in return. It’s as if my grief, my heartbreak, is somehow less worthy of empathy. It’s a strange and exhausting thing to hold space for others’ suffering while feeling as though my own people’s pain is invisible, or worse, irrelevant.

The ripples of this war will be felt for decades. I see it firsthand as I watch the orphans of the 2011 Syrian war grow up in a world that took their parents, their homes, and their futures. We have to do better. We owe each other, and the world, more than this—more than children living as amputees, more than the horrific failure that we even need a label like WCNSF—wounded child, no surviving family.

But there’s still a choice in how we respond. I’m working on a few ways that we can all get involved. So stay tuned, stay soft, and stay human. We owe each other at least that much.