• Madison Polidoro built a remote-controlled robot to rival AI-powered delivery bots.
• Polidoro made the sculpture by hand to bring human-made art and curiosities back to the streets.
• The creature, named Awebot, now roams city streets and occasionally faces off with delivery robots.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Madison Polidoro, a fine artist and fabricator based in Philadelphia. She collaborated with the art collective Ministry of Awe to create a remote-controlled robot in response to the delivery robots on the streets of her city. It has been edited for length and clarity.

The first time I saw a food delivery robot, I stopped dead in my tracks.

I didn't know what this thing was. I still don't fully understand it. All I knew was that it seemed to be looking at me and following me down the street, and it freaked me out.

So it was really exciting to think about making something I could put out on the street to rival them. I'm a maker who makes everything by hand — no AI, not even 3D modeling — mostly pen and paper.

The result is a moving artwork I named Orifice, which then became known as the Awebot. My sculpture loves people, but she's born to be a menace to the delivery robot ecosystem.

I wanted to bring my world of creatures into the street

I've been a sculptor since childhood and a fabricator for a little over a decade. I'm constantly adding to my little world of creatures.

Around 2020, I started working with Ministry of Awe, an art collective creating an immersive installation. Through their commissions, I've been able to execute more ambitious ideas, work on a larger scale, and integrate more expensive features.

They asked me to make something mobile that they could take into the streets. Originally, we were thinking big, perhaps some kind of float. We wanted to bring the art to the people.

Around that same time, I started seeing food delivery robots in Philadelphia. Then they became a more regular occurrence, especially around the collective.

At our Tuesday co-creation nights, we agreed it would make more sense to shrink the sculpture into something resembling those robots. They were this freaky, weird thing on everyone's mind.

As an artist and fabricator, I feel the pressure to work faster and faster. The advancements in tech and AI come with these weird, uncanny feelings that intensify everything, and not in a good way. My art already plays on emotional discomfort, so it was perfectly aligned.

I YouTubed my way through building her

This was my first tech-integrated project. I'm not tech-savvy by any means, so I really just YouTubed my way through it.

We ordered the robotic base, including the wheels and motor. On top of that, I built an aluminum frame to house the internal parts and create a cavity for the functional butthole component. You could theoretically use it for food delivery, although that isn't the intention. You could put anything in there.

I built another frame for the skin layer, added wood and foam, carved the foam down, and sculpted onto it. Then I coated and painted it, creating this weather-resistant, plasticky, rubbery creature.

There are silicone components, including the tongue and orifice. I also put my friend Nina's hair in there. All the hair in my art is real. Friends give it to me, or people who follow me on Instagram mail it to me.

For me, it's a ritual to breathe life and humanness into them.

She's a predator, but people seem to love her

Awebot's eyes and wheels are operated by remote control. The collective has an employee who takes her out and drives her around.

It's a really fun improv experience. What happens depends on the public. Some people have a whole interaction with her. Kids come up to her. Dogs come up to her. People take photos.

Sometimes we see delivery robots and have them face off. That has happened a couple of times. To me, they seem to treat her as an obstacle and as a threat, trying very hard to dodge her and get away.

I wanted to take this recognizable piece of technology and make something approachable that people would want to interact with. Something curious, fun, and silly.

The collective's concept is a bank where human emotion and imagination are the currency. Everything is handmade. You can see it and feel it. I think this sculpture captures that: taking ideas from this increasingly capitalized world and dialing them back into our humanity and creative needs.

I designed her with plans to continue the project. She may soon see siblings.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Anne Beiler, 77, who lives in Texas. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I started Auntie Anne's because my husband and I weren't making any money.

He'd become a counselor, providing free support to people in need of help. I wanted to support him, so in 1988, I opened a store at a farmer's market, selling pretzels and lemonade.

One store become two, which later became twelve, and it continued to grow until we became an international franchise. It was a miracle that unfolded in front of us.

In 2005, when I was 56 years old and had spent more than 15 years in the pretzel business, we sold Auntie Anne's. I never imagined starting a successful company and then selling it one day.

Pivoting into public speaking has made me feel alive

I grew up in the Amish community and always saw myself as a little Amish girl. Then I became "Auntie Anne." Announcing the sale of Auntie Anne's was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, and selling the company meant I had to change my mindset. My identity couldn't be "the founder of Auntie Anne's."

I hadn't thought too much about what I'd do once we sold the company, but my husband and I bought a farm in our area in Pennsylvania, and we wanted to develop it into a medical center and community center. It became our mission.

I realized I had more time to write and speak. Writing books helped me see that there is life beyond selling your company. At the moment, I probably do two or three speaking engagements per month. Whenever the phone rings, I want to say yes to telling my story.

At my age, if I'm not relevant, I don't want to be out there as just another speaker. But when I tell my story, I feel alive.

One thing nobody told me about aging: Work feels harder

I thought retirement would be less busy, but I'm still very busy.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to make a difference. Now that I'm older, I can't stop and do nothing. I don't think it's healthy for our bodies. I love going out into my town and seeing retired people working at grocery stores and doing things. We've been created to keep moving.

Since I turned 70, things that felt like a breeze to accomplish in my 50s and 60s, from working on the computer, writing a speech, or going out to speak, take a lot more mental energy to do now.

Everything I do seems bigger and more challenging. It's important for me to live in reality, not in denial. People always say, 77 is just a number. It may be a number, but reality tells me it's different to being 55 or 65.

I love gardening, quiet mornings, and the occasional motorcycle ride

A great benefit of retirement is that my daily routines are pretty simple. My phone doesn't ring at 7 a.m. — I don't want to do professional engagements before 9 a.m.

When I get up, I love to go outdoors. I love the quietness of the morning. I enjoy walking around my house, humming a tune, talking to God, or listening to the birds.

Then, I go to my emails to check who I need to respond to. Sometimes it takes a few hours and sometimes, it takes no time at all.

Most days, my husband and I go out in the afternoons. Community is very important to us, so we love going to local restaurants and bars in Texas, where we moved roughly 12 years ago, to get to know people. I've met wonderful people, and I feel satisfied.

I don't have any physical issues, and I love working outside doing gardening. During the Auntie Anne's days, my husband and I both had motorcycles we'd use to go and visit our stores. Motorcycle trips were always a part of our lives, and we carried that into our retirement. My husband had to sell his roughly five years ago for health reasons. I still have mine and get out on it occasionally on a beautiful day. I've ridden motorcycles for 40 years, so I'd rather be on one than in a car.

In this season of our lives, it's important to us to make sure we have everything in place for our children when we pass on. We talk about it quite often. We try to be healthy, avoiding processed foods and staying up to date with doctor's appointments. We aren't planning on going into a nursing home. Our daughter, who lives nearby, wants to take care of us with any outside help if needed.

I'm enjoying life's finale

Life is like the seasons. Spring, in your childhood and adolescence, is a time to dream. Summer is a time to plant so your dream can be fulfilled. Fall is a time to harvest — for me, this was selling Auntie Anne's and being able to step into a new chapter.

Winter is a time to enjoy. I love sitting on the couch and watching my husband sitting in his recliner. He's not the young man, full of energy, that I married, but the person he is on the inside is still the person I love.

When you retire, you aren't leaving yourself behind. You're bringing yourself into a new place.

Make this season of your life count, because it's the last season you have.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charles Hanna, the CEO of Cedar's Foods, based in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When my father came to the United States from Lebanon in the 1960s, he fell in love with this beautiful country. In 1981, he decided to start a hummus company, even though it was not yet common in the US. When he told my mother, she called her sister and said, "My husband is going crazy. Who is going to buy hummus?"

My mother made samples, which my father would take to the market. Some people would accept, and others wouldn't, until he called a local grocery store called Market Basket. The man he spoke to happened to know about a great Lebanese restaurant that served hummus, so he decided to give it a shot. My father was very happy.

In the '90s, my father asked me for help in running the business. At the time, I had no clue I would be so deeply involved. I had other plans, like maybe running a restaurant, but I wanted the business to succeed and make my father proud. I remember him telling me one thing: to make sure that when we made the product, we made it of the highest possible quality.

I took that to heart.

At that time, I never took a holiday. Sometimes I'd stay at work until 3 a.m., thinking about how I was going to run the business because I had no experience. I drove one of the delivery trucks and spent a lot of time selling the product because I'd never hired a broker.

I took over our small business as an owner in the mid-2000s, and finally had to list myself as CEO in the early 2010s once the company grew and I needed a title when working with the bank.

Today, we're one of the world's largest hummus producers, and my day-to-day is heavily involved in all aspects of the business. Here's a day in my life.

I wake up around 6 a.m. every morning without an alarm

I go to the gym, and I also like biking.

Music is a big part of my mornings and when I get ready for the day. I love all kinds of music, especially old French songs and classics. It puts me in a good mood, and I honestly don't know how to be in a bad mood. I wake up happy, and I try to carry that positive energy into work.

After my workout and a light breakfast, I head to work

My office is only 12 minutes away from my home.

When I open the door to the office and see my people inside, it's the best feeling in the whole world. We go up to the executive offices and sit down to talk and joke. Our president and COO, Nick Scangas, makes me one of his Greek coffees, or we might have some cookies made with his mom's recipe.

Then, we get serious. I'm involved in marketing, finance, and sales. I've done it all. I'm very detail-oriented, so I like to look at the numbers and analyze them.

I've never had an assistant or wanted one. I respond to emails and WhatsApp messages all throughout the day; I believe the more I'm involved and using my brain, the better. The only thing I can't do is cook, but I have a good taste in product.

One of the first ideas I had was to flavor the product rather than just make original hummus. My father initially told me no because the original recipe was our traditional product, but I convinced him to let us try garlic and red pepper.

Today, we've created many more flavors — lemon, chocolate, even hot honey — because I've always believed everybody has a different taste, and if you have a healthy base product, people should be able to enjoy it in different ways.

I also spend a lot of time on humanitarian projects, like supporting our local YMCA and funding students' education in Lebanon, which are extremely important to me.

One of my favorite parts of the day is going downstairs and talking with everyone

I'll listen to music, chat with employees, and see how they're doing because, in the end, we're all people.

My team and I go out for lunch together. I like going to 99 Restaurants; my team doesn't love it as much as I do, but they'll come along.

When I was younger, I loved volleyball and would play every day. I believe in running a business like a team — just like when I'd played volleyball. I've never believed in somebody being in total control. You have to surround yourself with strong people.

We've built this company to feel like a family, and many of our employees have been with us for years. We have an incredible executive team, and everybody brings something different to the company. I have many meetings every day with different team members — either in person or on conference calls.

You'll never find me sitting at the head of the conference table; I sit around it with my team because I think it signifies that everyone can have their own input and ideas. If you stay within the team and nobody's better than anybody else, you're going to make the best team ever.

After work, my house is filled with family and friends

In the afternoon, I leave the office, and my home is open. About 30 people come over every day — my uncles, cousins, friends — everybody. I have a huge family. It's like a tribe of 200 people in the area between New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Having that time with them is extremely important. We play cards or watch football or basketball. Everyone loves the Celtics and the Patriots.

I also love karaoke. If you wanted to categorize me or my life as a song, it would be Frank Sinatra's "My Way." Every word of that song is my life. I have to sing it at least three times a week. I also like "How I Love You" by Engelbert Humperdinck, and I'm working on some others. I'm not a star, but I do- have a good voice.

I'm always coming up with new ideas

Even with my hobbies and spending time with family, if I'm awake, I'm thinking about how I can better the business. I always want our customers to walk down the refrigerated aisle and find something new.

While innovation has always been important to me, I've never believed success comes from fighting your competition. We want the whole industry to grow because when more people discover new food products, everybody benefits.

A lot of the way I think about success goes back to my family's story. Whether I'm in the office or outside, this company is my life.

I sleep around 11 p.m. or midnight

Most nights, I watch a movie, although occasionally, I watch the news. I go to bed around 11 p.m. or midnight, before I wake up and do it all again the next day.

I believe if you don't have bad intentions toward anyone, you'll sleep well, wake up positive, and enjoy your day. That's how I've always tried to live my life.

What motivates me today is the same thing my father taught me years ago: make the highest-quality product possible and treat people the right way.

If one day I can't improve this company anymore, then somebody else should be CEO.

When people remember me, I don't want them to remember how much money I made. I want them to remember that I was a good person.

• Jennifer Rosner, 42, moved to a building in a Chicago suburb where most residents are older.
• Rosner has built fulfilling friendships and has a friend group spanning three generations.
• Living with older people has taught Rosner the value of enjoying life in the moment.

This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with Jennifer Rosner, 42, who lives in the suburbs of Chicago. At 36, Rosner moved into an apartment complex with mostly older residents. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2019, I had moved jobs, and the office was in the suburbs. I didn't want to commute from downtown Chicago, so I decided to bite the bullet and go to the suburbs. It's a slower life and not great for dating. Everyone's married with children.

I moved into a newly built apartment building, and it turned out to be predominantly older people. I hadn't assumed that it was going to be an older group at first. Many downsized from big homes. We actually align really well in terms of life stage. I've never gotten married or had children, and I probably won't at 42, whereas they already have done all that with their kids grown.

When I first moved in a few months prior to the pandemic, I was a private, autonomous person. I couldn't help but run into people and talk to them. I soon found out that everyone here loves to talk and hang out. They force themselves to talk to you. I wasn't sure, though, if I wanted to hang out with an 85-year-old on a Saturday night. Turns out that it's a lot of fun.

It started off with me going to community events. One person started a book club. Another wanted to talk about current events. There was a canasta training one night. As a corporate person, my life is fairly empty. I'm going to work, and I like to write and hang out with family and a group of people my age. I became self-aware and asked myself why I couldn't do more things. I forced myself to update the way I was behaving.

I was helping my neighbors get their vaccines scheduled because they couldn't get online to the right place. I wanted to make friends with them without it feeling like a parent-child relationship. There are things I've done that a child probably does, like drive them to a doctor's appointment. It feels like an additional extended group of people I need to watch out for, and vice versa.

I'm an old soul

I'm an only child and have no cousins in my age range. I never went to day care. My mom would bring me along everywhere, and the same thing with my dad when he wasn't working. The three of us were like a pod.

I certainly was socialized and had lots of nice interactions with people my own age. But I was definitely more consumed with an older group of people. I also have three aunts on my dad's side who do not have children. I had really great grandparents who were fun, social, and young-spirited. My dad's mom is now 101.

It's more of a nurture-than-nature situation. I've always had a taste for older music. I was really obsessed with Tony Bennett. I watched lots of Mel Brooks and shows from the Borscht Belt. I was probably alive in the 1950s and have been reincarnated as a 42-year-old in 2026.

It's been easy to make friends

It's been hard for me to find people in my age group who are available to do what I want. My priorities are different from those of people my own age right now. I'm not having to save money for someone's college education or to scoot somebody out of soccer practice. I avoid the drama in mom chats.

At the same time, it can get lonely. It was really serendipitous and unintentional that I found this group of older women here who want to do everything together. They want to see a movie at 10 p.m. because they can. They want to go to dinner on a Tuesday because they can. They want to walk at whatever hour because they can.

They have a ton to share and have done a lot I haven't done yet or will never do. I'm learning from them, and they're learning from me. It's very symbiotic.

There's something happening here, which I can already tell has the foundational elements of a reciprocal relationship. Over the last four years, the group has gotten smaller. People naturally fade in and out, and some people die. Others moved out or moved in.

I have two super close friends here whom I hang out with all the time. We never run out of things to say. We've talked about hosting a recruitment fair, setting up a table in the lobby, almost like sorority rush. Whenever someone moves in, we talk about whether they would be a fun person to incorporate. There are definitely factions here, but everyone is still cordial and says hello.

Every Saturday night, there's an outing with three to four women. We get dinner, explore Chicago, run errands, and shop. We occasionally see movies. The building gets a lot quieter in the winter because a whole chunk of them go to Florida. It's sometimes hard to schedule because many of them pick up odd jobs like working at a pilates studio or running small businesses.

I've learned so much from living with these people

I've always had very good financial literacy, and I live within my means. Talking to these women has been a huge wake-up call that I'd better stay on my savings journey because there's a long road ahead of me, if I'm lucky. Some of these people need to work, or their retirement plans aren't super sound even if they are retired, and that scares me. I don't want to be 80 and have to wake up to an alarm to go to a job.

I do have some anticipatory grief. Sometimes, I have existential anxiety about getting older and not having many people around. I do have some friends in my age group, but many are 30 years older than I am. God willing, I live a long life, and they live long lives, but they will die first if things go according to plan, and that would 100% devastate me. I think a lot about how to plan correctly so I'm not taking myself to my own colonoscopies.

I really enjoy my life, and I can't say if this was the right or wrong decision because there could have been a better life path for me, but I wouldn't know it. I learned not to hold myself to a script because nothing ever happens the way it should. Life happens first, and if you give in and enjoy the moment, that's a satisfying life. People die sooner because they're lonely, and it really doesn't take much to spark a conversation with another person. I fly by the seat of my pants and do the things that make me happy.

• Jodie Lopez is a single mom raising two boys to be independent and responsible from a young age.
• She expects them to clean their rooms, carry their bags, and manage their own screen time.
• She believes giving kids responsibility helps them become confident and capable adults.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jodie Lopez. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I first became a mother, I knew I wanted my children to grow up to be independent, resilient, and prepared for life in the real world.

Growing up, my mom wasn't around much. Although I didn't want my children to feel alone as I often did, I did want to pass on the independence I developed by doing things for myself. I have never been afraid to go out and do exciting things, and I wanted to raise children who could stand on their own two feet and take whatever life might one day throw at them.

Before being their friend, it was most important to me that I was their mom, preparing them for the day they would eventually leave my care.

Having boys, I also hoped they would grow into men who would make good housemates or partners one day. I've talked to them about the stereotypes surrounding men and housework, and I never wanted those stereotypes to become true of them.

Tidying their bedrooms

Even as tiny toddlers and young children, the boys were expected to tidy up after themselves. If they got something out, they would put it away. If they forgot, I reminded them.

Their bedrooms are their responsibility, not mine. While I would help them, I would never simply clean their rooms for them.

Carrying their own backpacks

I've always taken the boys out on little adventures. When they were tiny, I carried most of what we needed for the day, but they always had tiny backpacks of their own, usually with a pack of wipes and their own snacks.

By carrying their own snacks, they were able to feed themselves when they got hungry, listening to their bodies and responding to what they were telling them.

As they got older, I never carried their backpacks or school belongings to and from school. I see parents carrying everything at the start or end of a school day, but I've never done this.

When we go on vacations now, the boys carry backpacks full of toys, clothes, and toiletries. They are responsible for their own belongings.

Learning to help around the house

I've always expected the boys to pitch in and help around the house because that is simply part of living with other people. They don't get paid for this.

They take their own dishes to the sink. They keep their rooms clean. They tidy up after playing. They might do little, quick chores around the house.

But I also have a system where they can earn a small payment — up to about $1.50 — for doing jobs such as cleaning the bathroom or taking out the trash. For these jobs, they get paid twice as much if they notice the job needs doing and do it without being asked.

It's my way of raising boys who see a mess and then do something about it.

I'll also offer some sort of payment if it is a job I would normally do myself, but simply don't have time for as a working single mom.

I don't play at parks or soft play

I have never hovered around the boys at parks or soft play centers, even when they were little. I sit on a bench or at a table and let them figure out what they are capable of.

I will help when asked, but they know not to ask me to do things for them when they are capable of doing them themselves. I will assist, support, or get ready to catch them if they need me.

I want them to learn how to play without me. My role in these contexts is to guard them — to make sure they are safe — rather than to be their playmate.

Parents have looked at me suspiciously when I stand back while the kids play, perhaps thinking I am a lazy parent.

But this isn't me being a lazy parent. It is an intentional decision to teach them how to keep themselves safe, assess their capabilities, and play without constant adult intervention.

That isn't to say I never play with them. We play lots — just not in these contexts.

They manage their own screen time

Both boys have set amounts of screen time, but it is up to them to manage it. After school, they have 30 minutes of screen time. On weekends, they have two 30-minute lots, plus an extra 45 minutes when they play on screens together.

Instead of me hovering over them and checking how long they have been playing, they set a timer themselves to regulate their playing time. This also minimizes arguments when screen time finishes.

They are learning to manage their own time and self-regulate their screen use, rather than relying on me to constantly monitor it for them.

Learning what they are capable of

After years of intentionally teaching independence, my children are growing in confidence. They know what they are capable of.

Although I am very present in their lives and ready to help and support them, they are also growing into their own individuals in the world.

That, to me, is the whole point.

I don't want to raise children who need me to do everything for them. I want to raise children who know I am there when they need me, but who also know they are capable of doing so much for themselves.

• Joel Greiff planned to live on Villa Vie's Odyssey for decades, but was aboard for less than a month.
• He packed his Florida life into six bags and boarded the Odyssey earlier this month.
• On Tuesday, however, residents were ordered off in Cambodia as Villa Vie suspended operations.

This as-told-to essay is based on several conversations with Joel Greiff, 57, a Villa Vie Odyssey passenger from Florida. It has been edited for length and clarity. Villa Vie Residences and its founders, Mikael Petterson and Kathy Villalba, did not immediately respond to a request from Business Insider.

I planned to live on the Odyssey for 10, 20, or even more years. I don't think that will be happening now.

Still, unlike others, I am celebrating the time I was able to enjoy on the Odyssey, which was 26 days before Villa Vie suspended operations on Tuesday and we had to disembark in Cambodia.

I thought I had found my new home

In April 2024, I read an article about the Odyssey. I called a sales agent at the company and asked a bunch of questions.

The following May, I stayed on the Odyssey for four days. Within five minutes of boarding, I concluded that this was my new home, these were my new neighbors, and this would be my future.

What drew me in was that it would be a place where I could come, live, and be part of a community. I was following residents on Facebook and reached out to a couple of them individually. I asked whether they were happy with their decisions, and they said yes.

In August this year, I left my home in Florida. I spent a couple of months driving around the US, visiting friends and family, and saying my goodbyes. Then, in September, I flew to Bangkok and moved onto the ship on October 1.

I introduced 'Fantastic Joel' — that's what I go by — to many people on a ship. Most enjoyed meeting me. I'm sure a few didn't. There was always something going on, and people were really nice to each other. There were arts-and-crafts, plays, karaoke, and Seder dinners for Jewish residents.

I tried to put myself out there, meet a lot of different people, and say hi. There was always a good community having a good time. I absolutely fell in love with the crew. They deserve all the accolades and respect.

It was clear that things had changed

Compared with my visit in May 2025, it was clear to me that services and amenities had deteriorated by the time I moved aboard in October. Laundry was being done less frequently. Before going to Angkor Wat, I had to do my own laundry. The itinerary kept changing, and we sometimes sat at sea for days. Personally, I was fine with it.

Circle, Villa Vie's communication platform, was how the CEO and residents communicated. It's also how we got internal notices about the itinerary changes, visa applications, and other ship business.

On Sunday, we were told on Circle that if the company didn't receive money by Tuesday, the ship would not continue sailing. On Monday, we were told again that without money, the voyage would stop.

On Tuesday morning, I was at the bus station, coming back from a trip to Angkor Wat, charging my phone and waiting to get the shuttle back to the ship. The message came through on Circle telling us to disembark. It was about 7 a.m., and we had to be out by 2 p.m.

Before I arrived in Asia, I had fit everything I owned into four checked suitcases and two carry-on bags. I was able to repack within an hour. For people who had lived on the Odyssey for two years and had a home's worth of belongings, it was much harder.

I went somewhere quiet, then returned to help

After we disembarked, I went to Kampot, a small town in Cambodia, because I wanted to be somewhere peaceful. People had said it was relaxing.

Sihanoukville, where the ship was, felt like the opposite: a big, noisy place full of casinos and high-rises. I saw staff still working and residents who were discombobulated. I thought, 'I've got to get out of this craziness.'

For now, I've rented an affordable two-bedroom apartment for a month, about three hours away from Sihanoukville, where the ship is. I've been going back to the ship to help my fellow residents with their luggage, finding places to stay, and getting their belongings off the ship.

The residents are all coming together and helping each other out. Somebody says, "Do you have a suitcase?" and somebody says, "Yes, I have one spare."

I may never get my money back

I paid a lot for a 26-day stay on the Odyssey. Most likely I will never see it again. To me, if I lose the money, I don't need it. I don't care.

After all, the most important things in life are great friends and family, traveling the world, creating adventures, learning new things and, most importantly, helping others.

If the ship somehow finds a way to become a viable business, I would get back on it. If not, I'll explore living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. That was already my Plan B when I left Florida.

Amanda Goh and Alexandra Karplus contributed reporting.

Have you spent any time on the Villa Vie Odyssey as a cabin owner, renter, or staff member? If you have a story to share, get in touch with this reporter: jzitser@businessinsider.com.

• Carol Colborn is a full-time carer to her husband, William, who has Alzheimer's disease.
• She struggled, especially after being diagnosed with cancer, and the pair was confined to the house.
• A Medicare benefit designed to help carers and keep their loved ones at home changed all that.

This story is based on an interview with Carol Colborn, 77, a retired academic from Mesa, Arizona. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My husband, William, and I married in 2008 when I was 60, and he was 65.

We both retired and went on an amazing adventure together: RV-ing full time across North America for eight years.

We drove to every state in the US, every state in Mexico, and every province in Canada. Then we traveled the world, visiting 29 countries in total.

The trips stopped after William was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2018, so we're glad we built so many happy memories on the road.

He'd shown symptoms of the illness, mostly forgetfulness. I gave him a shopping list of three items written in large print, and he'd come back with two.

We had a ritual: he'd bring me a mug of herbal tea while we watched TV in the evening. It made me calm and serene and helped me sleep better. He'd done it every day since our wedding and, when he forgot the first time, I was distraught.

William had mild cognitive impairment for the first four years, which progressed into moderately severe Alzheimer's.

He needed 24/7 support, and I was his full-time caregiver. He stayed in bed a lot of the time, but I gave him his medication, three meals a day, and baths.

I had chemotherapy for lung cancer

His mobility was limited, but we still did our evening walks past four houses. It was his main exercise.

Things were relatively manageable until July 2025, when I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I had surgery in September and was in the hospital for four days.

My daughter and William's daughter stepped up to care for him, but it was a temporary arrangement because they lived in other states.

I began chemotherapy and had to juggle my husband's health needs with my own. It was incredibly stressful.

"How can I take care of him while taking care of myself?" I asked myself. We considered assisted living, but we couldn't bear the thought of leaving our own home.

One of our biggest expenditures was transport. William gave up driving long ago, and I'd never driven. It meant we'd spend around $500 a month on Uber rides to get to things like his doctors' appointments and my cancer procedures.

We were paying between $30 and $40 a trip. It got to the point where we stayed home most of the time because we couldn't afford the cost.

It was exhausting trying to navigate the Medicare system

The walls closed in on us. We didn't go to mass or socialize with our friends. Things like date night at a restaurant were out of the question.

It was exhausting trying to navigate the Medicare system. It felt as if I was fighting for every benefit and getting nowhere. Every day was a challenge.

Earlier this year, I saw an ad on Facebook for Ez Health, a free or low-cost service that deals with Medicare on your behalf. It explained how federal legislation passed in January 2024, called Community Health Integration, aims to keep people who want to stay in their own homes as long as possible.

The program supports carers like me. We were appointed a health advocate, known as a guide, who helped me through the qualification process.

We suddenly got many of the benefits I'd been struggling for, including eight hours a week of respite care. We also had access to medical professionals who came to your home, such as a physical therapist, a palliative nurse, a dentist, and a phlebotomist.

Dining out again has strengthened our marriage

Our transport is subsidized. The guide introduced us to a local paratransit service that costs $3 per ride. It has saved us as much as $400 a month. Best of all, it's opened up our world.

We use it not only for grocery shopping and health appointments — I'm having maintenance therapy for my cancer now — but also for date nights. Dining out again is transformative and has strengthened our marriage.

These days, rather than William's caregiver, I refer to myself as his "present companion," as I steer him through his later years.

• Taylor Kelly started running candle-making workshops in 2023 to get out of the house and meet people.
• He turned his side hustle into a full-time small business after he was laid off from his corporate job.
• His company offers classes like flower arranging, pasta making, and tea tasting and blending.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Taylor Kelly, the 34-year-old founder of Eventful ATL, who lives in Atlanta. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

If you'd asked me in the beginning if my side hustle of candle-making classes would become a business a year later, I would've had no clue.

It went from $2,000 in revenue in 2023, when it was an evening and weekend side gig, to $16,000 in 2024, when I created a legal business entity: Eventful ATL.

Then, in 2025, I was laid off from my corporate job.

It gave me more flexibility to really dive in, and we ended the year a little under $75,000 in revenue. I pushed into 2026 with a stable small business, and we're on track to end 2026 with around $100,000 in revenue.

We currently offer over 12 class topics, including candle making, flower arranging, pasta making, tea tasting and blending, charcuterie making, wine tasting, and cocktail making. We also recently added pottery-making and seasonal classes like wreath-making and gift-wrapping.

Sometimes I wonder, how the heck did I end up here?

I started hosting candle-making workshops after moving to Atlanta

I lived in New York for several years and worked for Ritani, a New York-based jewelry company, in a few different marketing roles from 2019 to 2025. I took two years off from Ritani between 2020 and 2022 to do a full-time MBA program at the University of Miami, and I rejoined the company in May 2022.

My side gig began in the winter of 2023. I'd moved to Atlanta, and in order to get out of the house and meet people, I started hosting candle-making workshops on evenings and weekends. Candle making had been my hobby during COVID and grad school.

It started to grow beyond candle making, into other types of classes. I teamed up with a venue partner who has a wonderful event space and added flower-arranging and caviar-tasting workshops.

Initially, I asked people whom I knew had specific hobbies, passions, or experience if they'd offer a class in it. Soon, I started getting emails and calls from small business owners and creatives who really wanted to teach but didn't want to deal with the logistics of coordinating classes or experiences.

It wasn't hard to balance it with my full-time job because I was working remotely and wasn't doing anything else after work hours. I'd spend my nights and weekends working on Eventful and focused on SEO for organic growth.

As the months went by, it became clear that there was an opportunity to keep growing Eventful, and I thought about the possibility of making it my full-time job. However, I liked having a stable paycheck.

I was laid off from my full-time job in May 2025

It wasn't a big surprise that it happened. I remember being stressed, like, Oh, crap, I don't have any income now. If I hadn't had this little business on the side, I would've spiraled. I'm so grateful that I had my side hustle to fall back on.

I started my job search in June while still working my side gig, but I wasn't getting much traction with interviews. I sent out hundreds of applications and got only a handful of interviews. I'd be so annoyed about spending a whole day applying when I could've spent that energy diving into my business.

There were so many jobs listed, and a recruiter would say, "We'd love to chat," and then the role would vanish. That was disheartening, and it made more sense to pursue something that I had going myself.

I also wasn't finding roles that were exciting to me, the way I had years ago when I lived in New York. Part of that was because I was so excited about working on my business. I knew there was potential; it wasn't huge at the time, but I knew we could continue to grow.

A couple of months later, I made the decision to pursue my business full-time

I'm not sure I would've pursued growing the company full-time anytime soon if it weren't for being laid off.

Now, we host 15 to 20 events a month. We have at least two public classes each week, and we're adding more throughout the holiday season, as well as multiple private group experiences throughout the week.

We have a lot of brands that leverage us to provide team-building experiences for clients and employees, including companies like Google, Salesforce, Chick-fil-A, and Home Depot.

We work with about eight to 10 contractors and instructors who teach classes. I like working on a team — I don't like sitting here alone. I've also started teaching a lot of our pasta-making and flower-arranging classes.

When I'm not instructing, I like being present at as many classes as possible to facilitate setup and breakdown. However, there've been many times when our team has handled classes without me present, and the goal is to ensure we're creating the right systems to make that the standard, in order to eventually scale and grow into new markets like Miami and New York.

Sometimes I'm the marketing person, and sometimes I'm the instructor for the day. Every day is a new day, and I wake up to an email of something cool that I didn't expect coming across my desk.

I'm excited for us to continue to grow

It took until September of this year, when my brain was like, This is it. This business is really bringing in money, and if I'm being lazy or not doing as much as I can, it impacts my life. I have a dog who's very expensive. I either make money and pay the bills right now, or it doesn't happen.

It's not just about the money, though. I also get to speak with so many passionate people every day. My business has been able to film on a Bravo show and has been featured in local news. We signed a lease for our first permanent space in downtown Atlanta early this year, in preparation for the World Cup this past summer.

Now that I've fully committed and we have people who are really invested in what we're doing — the business owners who love teaching and sharing these opportunities — I always think about scalability.

There are a lot of different moving parts right now. I'd really love to focus on brand partnerships and do a big partnership push in 2027.

That being said, who knows what I'd do if another opportunity came up? I don't have to always be there personally with my business.

We have a lot of events happening at the end of 2026, which is giving me anxiety — but I asked for it. It's either that, or we don't grow.

• Marissa Goldstein and her husband traveled to Vietnam for work in 2016 and decided to move there soon after.
• Now, a mother of two sets of twins, Goldstein says her family of six is happily settled in Ho Chi Minh City.
• The city's low costs and kid-friendly culture make family life easier — though international school fees are high.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marissa Goldstein, a 40-year-old entrepreneur from the Boston area who lives in Ho Chi Minh City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2016, my husband and I flew to Vietnam with our 1-year-old twins and two bags. We told everyone we'd be back in three months.

Ten years later, we have four kids — two sets of twins — and a life in Ho Chi Minh City that I wouldn't trade. We've taken our kids to about 50 countries and spend summers with our families in Boston, then come back to the chaos of a city we love.

Asia had my heart long before Vietnam

I grew up outside Boston. I studied communications at the University of Maryland, and a trip to Thailand during my junior year abroad was my first taste of Asia. I fell in love.

My husband and I met in high school and married after I graduated. I worked in PR and sales, then got my MBA at Babson College. Around 2015, there was an opportunity to help US companies diversify their supply chains away from China, so we started The Timroon Group, a manufacturing and sourcing company focused on Vietnam.

Being home with two babies overwhelmed me. Even though we had an incredible support system, living with my parents in a six-bedroom house in the suburbs. I quickly realized that staying home wasn't for me.

When traveling, though, I felt unstoppable. We headed to Ho Chi Minh City the day after their first birthday.

Vietnam won me over through my kids

I loved it right away, especially how people treat children. We'd bring the twins to dinners and big brunches, and the staff would take them and play. I felt really safe. Within a month, we had friends from all over the world. Three months turned into 18.

When the twins were 18 months old, we took an overnight train to Sapa in northern Vietnam. Hmong women were selling their textiles, and I decided to start my own travel accessories brand, working with women artisans. On that same trip, we decided to have one more child. Soon after, we found out we were having twins again.

In January 2020, we returned to Boston, where I grew Raffi Nova, my textile accessories brand. But by 2022, my husband's business was picking up, and we had the itch to return to Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City works for a family of 6

We live about 15 minutes from the city center. There are a lot of foreigners living here, several international schools, and everything is within a 10-minute drive.

There are good doctors and hospitals, Michelin Guide-rated street food, French bakeries, and plenty of activities for the kids, from taekwondo to tennis.

The cost of living is much lower, though school and housing add up. Housing in our area ranges from about $1,500 a month for a smaller apartment to around $10,000 for a villa. We're somewhere in between, in a five-bedroom serviced apartment.

We spend about $1,000 a month on groceries, buying fruit and vegetables at the local market, and spending more on meat and imported food. A latte at a cute, bougie café is about $2, so I treat my friends to coffee without thinking twice.

We have a live-out helper who we pay about $900 a month. She cleans, preps groceries, and helps with the kids. Health insurance for our family runs under $10,000 a year.

I get serious sticker shock when I go home in the summer. I take the kids out for bagels, and it's $100 or more.

Schooling is by far our biggest cost. International school fees in the city range from about $8,000 to $30,000 per child per school year. We're at the higher end, but we strongly believe in a good education.

With fees for four kids, we probably spend about the same as we would in the US, where we wouldn't have to pay for school. But there, we wouldn't eat out or travel as much.

Being far away is hard, but travel makes up for it

Both our big families live in the Boston suburbs.

There's also the weather: hot, hotter, and wet. In rainy season, it pours at school pickup every single day, even when you're sure it won't. The upside is that the kids need only one wardrobe all year.

I see Vietnam is our launchpad to the world.

Last spring, we spent a night in the jungle in Phong Nha, home to Vietnam's largest cave. We've been to Thailand about 20 times. Last February, we rented an RV and drove around New Zealand's South Island. On a trip to Sri Lanka, the kids learned to surf, and we stayed at a homestay in the mountains.

Traveling as six is hard. Most hotels don't allow four children in a room, and we can't fit in a regular car. Our best trips have never been at nice resorts. They're homestays, campsites, and RVs.

That's probably why this life suits us. I never wanted to say, "This is the house we'll live in for the next 50 years." Predictability scares me. I thrive in chaos, and with two sets of twins, there's always plenty of it — I wouldn't have it any other way.

• Ariel Grunberg was unhappy with his appearance at 72 and decided to do something about it.
• He opted for plastic surgery, including a facelift, a lower blepharoplasty, and a neck lift.
• The grandad is pleased with the results, and said some people think he's in his fifties.

This story is based on an interview with Ariel Grunberg, 72, a semi-retired real estate owner and manager from New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My eyes bothered me the most as I got older. I always felt they were drooping too much, and if I didn't do anything about them, they would cover my vision.

One of the turning points was attending a presentation when the speaker had eyes similar to mine and peered upward in an exaggerated way.

I remember thinking, "Why doesn't he get them fixed?" Sure enough, when I saw him again, I noticed that he'd had his eyelids lifted. You could see a lot more of his eyes, and he no longer had that mannerism of looking up.

In February 2026, I consulted the New York cosmetic surgeon, Dr. John Layliev, who came highly recommended, to discuss my options. He suggested eye surgery and a brow lift.

As we got talking, I mentioned how much I didn't like my turkey neck, which made me think about my age.

People had remarked about how young and fit I looked — I did triathlons, including a half IronMan — but I was still self-conscious.

The total cost was around $60K

In the end, we settled on a deep plane facelift, neck lift, brow lift, lower blepharoplasty procedure, facial fat grafting, and fat-based liquid rhinoplasty.

I thought that, if I were under anesthesia anyway, I might as well get more than my eyes and brow done. The total cost was around $60,000.

My girlfriend was supportive, but I only told my two daughters about two weeks beforehand. I suspected they'd say I didn't need it, but they said it was up to me.

I'm not the nervous type, so I wasn't worried ahead of the operation on July 31. It took around eight hours, and I stayed in the hospital overnight.

My face felt very stiff afterward, which I'd expected. I had a spinal surgery a year earlier, and my body had temporarily stiffened, too.

There is less of a stigma about men having cosmetic surgery

There was very little pain or puffiness, but I stayed inside for three weeks, though it probably wasn't necessary.

I'm not very good at keeping secrets, and I thought there was no point. There is less of a stigma these days about men and cosmetic surgery.

In fact, I told everyone who cared to listen.

I think the results are exceptional, as I don't have as many wrinkles or as much facial drooping. I recently visited a new dentist, who said I looked 50. A taxi driver guessed my age at 55.

My younger brother used to joke with restaurant waiters when we were together that I was his dad. He can't do that anymore, and it's a good thing.

I'm considering veneers

I know 72 is relatively mature for a facelift, but I feel I'm less likely to need another one in the future. I'm considering veneers on my teeth, but I'll leave it at that.

I didn't go ahead with the surgery for my girlfriend, but she is delighted by my rejuvenated look. The feeling is certainly mutual.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with O'Shea Jackson, known professionally as Ice Cube, a 57-year-old rapper, actor, and cofounder of the professional three-on-three basketball league Big3, who is based in Los Angeles. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I started out wanting to be the best rapper in the world. Then John Singleton put me in "Boyz n the Hood" in 1991, and I loved creating at that level. I didn't just want to be an actor; I wanted to be a producer and a writer. I wanted to control my own films and be involved in record company meetings. That thrust me into the business world.

I understand, from the neighborhood I come from in South Central Los Angeles, that if you don't learn the game, you're going to get taken advantage of. I knew that if I really wanted to be a solo artist and didn't want to be a horror story at the end of my career, I needed to learn the business. That's when I started transitioning to working behind the scenes.

In 2016, my cofounder, Jeff Kwatinetz, and I had the idea to start a professional three-on-three basketball league. We spent a year throwing around ideas for it before announcing Big3 in January 2017.

I love three-on-three, and I've always wondered why it hasn't been professionalized. We wanted to elevate it and attract players who still want to play at a high level against their peers in the summer. I also still rap and act, and I haven't looked back.

Here's a day in my life in Los Angeles.

5 a.m. — my goldendoodle wakes me up

My goldendoodle, Luffy, and I wake up at the same time, or one of us wakes the other up. He's a year old, so he's still got puppy energy. My wife, Kimberly, and my four kids watch an anime where the lead character's name is Luffy, which is how he got the name.

I've been an early riser ever since I was young. I like to wake up before everybody — sometimes two hours before my family — to hyper-focus on anything that needs my undivided attention. The East Coast is three hours ahead of us anyway, so I don't want to be late talking to people there.

7 .a.m. — coffee and walking Luffy

I usually make myself coffee at home. I'm a fan of Peet's dark roast. Then I take Luffy for a walk.

I'm not big on working out early in the morning, so I try to exercise in the evenings. To me, the morning is for coffee, enjoying being alive, and being happy that I get another chance to see another day.

I'm not a big breakfast guy, so I usually don't eat until late afternoon.

8 a.m. — thinking in the shower

Most of my ideas come when I'm in the shower. They'll just flood me with everything I need to get done, almost in order: you gotta have that, you gotta have that, stop procrastinating on this, get to that. The shower is where I get a lot of my clarity.

9 .a.m. — prioritizing my schedule from my home studio and office

I don't go into the office — I stopped doing that in 1999. I'm not built to be in the office. I'm a remote kind of guy.

I've got a spot in my house that's a studio and office. A lot of work gets done in there, including new music. It's cool to have it all in one place.

Because I'm splitting my time between Big3, music, films, and other things, I have to really plan the day and prioritize. There are things that have to get done today and things that can wait until tomorrow, so it's about deciphering what needs my immediate attention and focus.

10 a.m. — meetings focused on wherever I am

When I'm traveling, my day can vary a lot. I have a lot of meetings on my iPhone and Zoom, so I plan them around whatever I'm there to do.

If I'm on tour, everything has to come after what I have to do that night and the focus I need to give to the live performance. I've tried to do a movie in the daytime and go to the studio at night, and something suffers.

You don't want to spread the work too thin, either, just because you can. You want everything to still be as top-notch and good as you can make it. That takes discipline.

12 p.m. — ordering lunch and trying not to succumb to burgers

When it's time to eat, the first thing that pops into my head is always burgers. I try to push burgers aside and think of something different, like a Greek salad wrap. Otherwise, I'd go for burgers and fries all the time.

1 p.m. — checking out social media and executing on projects

I look at a lot of social media to figure out my next move. Social media-wise, I still like X, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. I'm not a big-time Facebook guy. I also don't use any AI apps.

I have several projects, and they're each in one of three stages: planning, execution, and follow-through. There's always work to be done. I've been in business for 40 years — I've seen it all. Nothing gets me too high, and nothing gets me too low.

I'm always looking for the most strategic way out of a sticky, complicated, or bad day. I don't really let it stress me, because I always know there's a solution.

6:30 p.m. — shut down business and hang with my family

It's crazy for somebody in the music industry, where mostly everything happens late at night, but it's for my sanity.

When it comes to my off time, people think I'd be out enjoying being Ice Cube, running around and getting the love that's out there, but I like kicking it with my family, hanging out, and not doing too much. A typical dinner is going to a steakhouse with my family, or to a burger joint if I'm on the road.

To unwind, I like to watch sports. Hopefully, there's a game on that I want to see: basketball, football, a Big3 game, or baseball. I'm a Dodgers guy.

11 p.m. — try to get to bed

I don't like to talk about stuff late at night, because then I'll be up all night, and I have to be back up in a few hours. I don't need much sleep, about five or six hours, but I make sure I get it.

Some days, I'm off to do something super cool, like a concert or a movie in France. It's important to balance the craziness with the regular, sensible stuff.

My life can be very exciting and complicated at times, and very simple and normal at other times. It's the best of both worlds.

• Kylie Genter graduated from college with no career plan.
• At 22, she moved to South Korea to teach English and became fascinated by female freedivers who harvest seafood.
• Now, 37 and married, she spends around five days a week diving with women in their 70s and 80s.

This-as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kylie Genter, 36, a Haenyeo diver on Jeju Island, South Korea. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I'd been teaching English in South Korea for four years when I learned about the Haenyeo — female freedivers who harvest seafood without using modern equipment. I was interested. So, in the summer of 2018, I completed diving lessons with the hopes that maybe I could work with them one day.

A few years later, my Korean husband, a scuba diver, read on a diving group chat that a small village on the southwestern side of Jeju Island was recruiting new divers. Their youngest diver was 68 — I wanted to give it a try.

At first, I was rejected, but I got invited back a month later. I don't know what changed in that one month, but I guess they suddenly became open to it, and I went in for an interview.

In January 2024, I started as a diving intern, and after two years of training, I received my Haenyeo license in April.

Finding my footing in South Korea

I was born in upstate New York, the middle of three kids. I went to SUNY Oswego and graduated with a degree in communications.

After graduating in 2012, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I applied to a few graduate schools and jobs, but nothing worked out. I was stressed out and wanted to leave. I thought about going to Japan to teach English, as I'd studied Japanese for a year while in university.

Instead, I settled for South Korea, where some schools offered housing. I didn't know much about Korea at that time — I wasn't really a big K-pop fan before I came.

So, just four months after graduating, I moved to Jinju, a three-and-a-half-hour high-speed train ride from Seoul, to work as an English teacher. In the mornings, I'd do 20-minute lessons with kids. In the afternoon, I'd have speaking classes.

I continued teaching until August 2020. That same year, I got married and started a pension business with my husband, while still teaching English on the side.

Building my life as a diver

To get my license, I had to dive 50 days within a year, sell 1.2 million South Korean won, or $884, worth of catch, and get a unanimous vote from the divers in the collective. It took me two years.

Language was an issue; despite having spent years in the country, I still couldn't always understand what was happening. My biggest strength is that I'm physically fitter than some of the divers — they are mostly in their 70s and 80s. So, I help out, like when they need someone to carry their nets full of catches or wash the dishes.

A lot of the work is physically demanding. If you don't feel good, you can't just push through. I can't dive if I have a cold or my sinuses are blocked because I can't equalize underwater. It's important to keep my body physically strong and healthy through working out.

Committing to an unconventional job

I enjoy my life. Every day is different, and I do a lot of things besides diving. I run a pet hotel with my husband; sometimes I still tutor and give lectures. I work more hours, but I also have a lot more flexibility to pursue other things. I don't need permission for a break or a day off.

On normal days, I wake up and take the dogs for a walk. Then, I go diving depending on the weather. If it's not great, I only dive for two or three hours. A normal day of diving may take four or five. After that, I take the dogs for another walk.

In our village, we typically dive five days a week. We'll take our catch and accumulate it after one cycle. After that, we'll sell it to the regional fishing co-operative. They'll pay our president, and she then distributes the money.

Being a diver isn't a full-time job. A lot of what we earn depends on the catch. I make around $2,000 a year. Teaching is much more financially stable. But I love learning from women who have been carrying on this work for generations.

When I'm diving, nothing else matters. I just have to focus on diving and catching seafood. Nobody can call me. I don't have to look at my phone and waste time doomscrolling.

When I'm deep underwater, it can be meditative, especially on days when the ocean is calm, and there's plenty to catch. I see myself wedded to this village for the rest of my life.

• Yolanda Williams, 46, bought 3 acres in Arkansas and moved there with her daughter.
• She invited another single mom she met online to live on the property with her two kids.
• They now share expenses, childcare, and emotional support in what they call a "mommune."

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Yolanda Williams, 46, who lives in central Arkansas with her 9-year-old daughter on a farm with another single mom and her two kids. They help each other with childcare, mental support, and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2021, after my daughter Gia and I got COVID, we decided to take a drive one day. I came across this one little road that I fell in love with.

We kept coming back, driving around this neighborhood in Arkansas, and it became our Sunday thing. We'd get in the car and get ourselves a sweet treat — me a coffee and her a cinnamon roll — and drive around for an hour looking at all the different farms and houses and really just visualizing the life we wanted.

We did that for two years before I found our 3.19-acre land in rural Arkansas. After visiting it, I purchased the land in 2023 on Facebook Marketplace, For-Sale-By-Owner. It cost $40,000 to buy, and I put down $12,000.

It was fully forested raw land, so I could only see part of it, but I used a real estate agent for the process. At the end of 2024, I secured a grant to help pay for the infrastructure, and I spent 2025 getting the land ready to move into. We didn't move until March 2026 because the land needed clearing and practical things such as a driveway and utilities.

The process was expensive because I didn't have much money left to build anything on the land. We got an RV as a place to stay, stash money, and build in the next five years.

Before I'm 50, I would like to have a permanent home built on the land

I'm from Southern California, and when I left in 2017, I was paying $600 to rent a guest room from my friend. Now, I pay $485 for my land mortgage and $400 for my RV payment a month. So, all in all, for me to be on this land, it's around $885 per month. Utilities run about $150 to $200 a month in the summer, and then $100 for water. It's exponentially cheaper to live like this, especially in Arkansas.

Here we have the freedom to roam and to be outside. I'm always in the garden. I've actually lost 30lbs since March because I move so much, and I didn't even realize it. I'm getting a lot more sun and exercise — so is my daughter. I feel more content, I feel more at peace.

However, this move has turned into so much more than that for us. I've been a single mom since my daughter Gia was born. She's 9 now, and I've never truly felt what it's like to have support, to have someone around all the time. By chance, that all changed this year.

I'm not sure who followed who first, but I met a single mom called Sunnie on Threads

She posted on the social media app Threads about wanting to buy land, and I commented back that she should consider Arkansas. I explained to her that land is cheap out here, and I gave her a bunch of information.

A few months later, I randomly saw her posting on Threads that she was in Arkansas with her two kids, who were 11 and 5 years old, looking for land, so I slipped into her DMs, and we exchanged numbers. I texted her to arrange a meet-up and to show her my land. Mind you, this was before I had actually moved onto the property.

The first time we met, we had pizza with the kids. They had a look around, and the kids played really well together. Gia likes the pizza crust but not the actual pizza, and one of Sunnie's kids likes the pizza but not the crust, so it worked out perfectly.

They helped me around the property as I was in the main stretch of getting everything ready for me to move on to. That's when we got to talking about her potentially living here while she searched for her own land.

Sunnie lived in a different city about an hour from me, and she didn't know anyone in Arkansas. I offered her the chance to stay with us to avoid spending money on hotels and Ubers. Although she wanted to buy her own land, I made it clear that she was welcome to stay with me as long as she wanted to. We now split the mortgage and utility costs in half.

That's how our "mommune" started.

Although we didn't know each other for long, I felt a strong connection and vibe

I loved that she was very much like, "I want to put my gloves on, and I want to help you," when it came to laying the foundations around the property, such as weeding, spraying for ticks, building planters, and sowing seeds. Now we garden together and grow as much as we can — like comfrey, lemon balm, mint, and basil. We even make our own fertilizer.

And you know, that's what's missing. A lot of people want this life, but they don't want to actually roll their sleeves up and get dirty to help one another.

Sunnie was essentially a complete stranger. But what I've been trying to do is listen to myself and trust myself. I really felt a great vibe from Sunnie, and my daughter really took to her. We got along, and it just felt right.

Yes, it's hard to build trust because you can't really trust anyone until you start to be around them all the time, but the whole thing with Sunnie is she came, and we sat, and we had a discussion about money and about expectations and about childcare. You just have to be willing to have the hard conversations in order to build a community, and I want to be around people who understand me.

We're now growing food together and raising wildlings.

This is our matriarchal community

What I always try to tell people is we need to decenter and deprioritize romantic relationships and just focus on relationships in general, whatever that support looks like.

Whether that's friendship or family, focus on building that community, and we will get the support we're looking for, but if you're only focused on needing a man or a husband or partner to have security to feel supported, then a lot of people will miss out on invaluable support with friends or other women.

For example, I was having a really hard time this Mother's Day — it's just a hard day for me. Sunnie saw that I wasn't in a good space, so she took the kids and left so I could get some alone time. Having that support and knowing that I can say "hey, I'm having a hard time with motherhood right now" and someone will not only understand but will help me through that by watching my kid for me, taking her to the park, or giving me some space — it has been life-changing. It's the support that I need.

We really just help each other out. When I have to leave and go somewhere, I'll ask her to come inside the RV or to watch Gia play outside, and she does. Vice versa — if she needs me to watch her children, it's really not a big deal. We just ask each other for favors like: "If you're out at the store, can you get me this?"

We communicate really well with each other, and we help each other out any way we need to, and that includes having dinner together sometimes, watching TV together, and I will let her kids come over here so she can have a break and be able to be in her RV by herself, or we'll go to the park so she can be by herself sometimes.

Ever since I met Sunnie, I can just tell there's a change in my nervous system. Having someone here means I can tap out. I'm 46 this year, and I wouldn't trade this mommune we've built for the world.

• Gary Brecka is a biologist who worked on predicting mortality for insurance companies.
• He's 56 and hopes to live to 120.
• He's purchased hyperbaric chambers and red light beds, but says sleep and community are more important.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gary Brecka, co-founder of Ultimate Longevity Center. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a biologist, and for years, I worked helping insurance companies try to predict exactly when their customers might die. I also expect to live to 120 — and I'm only 56 today.

Everyone on earth has a predicted life expectancy, based on large-scale data. When I worked for insurance companies, I used their data to analyze the specific factors that affected individual life expectancy.

What I found surprised me. For example, high blood pressure wasn't always associated with increased mortality. A lot of data from insurance companies ran counter to mainstream medical dogma.

My work was sometimes grim. One day, I found a potentially deadly medical error in a patient's chart, but I had no means to tell her. That was the day I decided I wanted to stop working to predict death and start helping people live longer, happier, healthier lives.

Skip the diets and cleanses, but move daily

A lot of longevity work isn't flashy. It's about the same healthy habits that we all know we should practice. If you show me someone's daily habits, I'll show you where they'll be in three to five years.

There's no evidence for dogmatic dieting, whether that's following keto, carnivore, or any other dietary trend. What extends life is the absence of processed foods. Likewise, you don't need to cleanse: if you're peeing, pooping, and sweating, you're already living a detox lifestyle.

Unsurprisingly, exercise is critically important. I know from working in insurance that a sedentary lifestyle is one of the biggest risk factors for death: sitting is the new smoking. Daily mobility is non-negotiable for me — I block off time for it on my calendar daily.

Put sleep on the calendar and don't use your phone in bed

Sleep is one of the most critical aspects of longevity. It's our human superpower, the time when our brains clear waste and form memories. And yet, sleep is the most bullied part of most people's calendar. It happens only after everything else is done.

I take the opposite approach: sleep is the first thing I put on my calendar. I am meticulous about keeping a solid sleep schedule, and I make my bedroom a sanctuary. To get good sleep — and all the health benefits that come with it — your nervous system needs to be regulated and relaxed.

I bring my phone into the bedroom, but put it on airplane mode. I don't scroll, watch TV, send work emails, or do anything else that could put my nervous system on high alert.

Build community around healthy habits

How often have we heard a story about spouses who have been married for decades, dying in quick succession? That's because relationships are critical to longevity — and they're something money can't buy. Your community and connections have a huge impact not only on your lifespan but also on your health span.

My kids range in age between 18 and 28, spanning all of Gen Z. Their peers are realizing how important community is. Run clubs are becoming more popular among that demographic. It's not just about physical health — anyone can lace up their sneakers and run a 5K — but about the community building that takes place before and after exercise.

We should all take a page from their books. Building social space with like-minded people who share your passions and purpose will help you live longer.

I've spent big on health technologies

The basic tenets of longevity — sleep, community, exercise, and unprocessed foods — will allow me to live a happy, healthy life. And they don't come with an unattainable price tag.

Because I have the means, I also use expensive technologies that can further support my health. I've spent well into seven figures on health technology, including saunas, cold plunges, red light beds, and hyperbaric chambers at my two houses.

I'd rather have a hyperbaric chamber than a Ferrari, and a red-light bed than a Rolex. But I also know that you can't skip the basics of healthy living, no matter what cutting-edge technology you have access to.

• Maria Sentmanat, 55, quit her six-figure job this summer without another job to go to.
• She started Why Not Wild, giving guided tours of the South Florida wilderness.
• She's not making any money and living off her savings, but says the move has saved her mental health.

This as-told-to-essay is based on a conversation with Maria Sentmanat, 55, who is based in Miami, Florida. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a high school dropout who came from a single-parent family. My upbringing was filled with chaos and instability. I never thought I'd end up being the type to earn a six-figure salary, but that's exactly what I ended up doing — and walking away from this year.

On paper, I was definitely successful. I had a $153,000 paycheck managing one of the largest 5K races in the country, a job I'd held for the past five years. I could have made up to $180,000 next year if I had stayed on.

The job was a new opportunity when I really needed one

You could argue it was the culmination of the fitness career I had spent 16 years building, after becoming super overweight following the birth of my daughters. I became a personal trainer and ran my own wellness-focused fitness studio. I'd created something special.

But then the pandemic happened, and I lost everything. I couldn't run my studio anymore, and struggled to build it back up again once the restrictions were lifted.

The founder of this race event was a friend, so when she told me she needed a new race director, it felt like an opportunity life was giving me. I completed all the required certifications and threw myself into this new role, which was both incredibly stressful and rewarding.

But things started to change. I started to dread going to work, and my stomach was always upset. I felt myself going into "fight or flight" mode, with the trauma from my childhood resurfacing, that I just didn't need.

I felt heavy, and my daughters — who are now 25 and 27 — could see it. I would go out into nature to decompress, but I was always thinking, "What am I going to do with this massive thing hanging on the side of my neck?" I got to a state where I just felt numb, even though I was continually asking myself, "What are you going to do? How are you going to keep doing this?"

I quit with no other job lined up

I resigned in August 2026, with no other job to go to, which some people called crazy.

But I had a strong feeling that I needed to find purpose and passion again. I knew that would be through nature. That's where I heal. That's where I can find a place that I feel seen, heard, understood, and held.

So I knew I had to build something that centered on connecting people with nature, so "Why Not Wild" was born. I take people into the wilderness around South Florida, but it's not packages. It's completely personalized. I want to talk to you and find out what you need.

I'll take you hiking through the Everglades, but it's not like, "oh, look at this nice trail". You will have to walk through water, and for some people, that is a big thing to overcome. For people who don't want to hike, I do motorcycle adventures.

I want people to reconnect with an entity we have caused so much destruction to. I want to be the bridge. I'm using my social media platforms to create awareness of what's beautiful out there.

I'm finding purpose again

Financially, I'm OK. I've been super strict about my savings, even while paying $4,700, helping my daughters, and paying my SBA loan from my previous business. I owned a home in Mount Dora that I sold last year too. I could live comfortably for six months, even a year, but then I'd have no savings left.

My ex-husband and I divorced when the girls were young, but we still co-parent very closely. He has a key to my place, comes over to eat several times a week, and we even go on vacation together. Our kids haven't had that typical divorce experience, which we worked hard to be intentional about. He and the girls are happy that I have done this — they have complete faith in me.

I'm not making any money right now, but I wake up excited about every day. What door is going to open? What's going to happen? Even if this doesn't work out, I was brave enough not to get caught up in what was, in effect, a bad marriage. I'll know that I was brave enough to try.

I have lost all that income and future security, but I have gained so much more. I feel better mentally, physically, and spiritually.

• Michael Bowen started his career in church work, which he found unfulfilling and lacking stability.
• Driven by a love for Disney and a desire for change, he decided to make the move to Florida at 44.
• After a hiatus due to personal reasons, he returned to his job as a Disney bus driver this year.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michael Bowen, a 51-year-old Walt Disney World bus driver and Disney content creator behind the YouTube channel "Incognito Mouse." It has been edited for length and clarity.

Most of my adult life, I worked in the church. I went to university and Bible school to become a minister. I went into this line of work thinking it would make someone else happy, and didn't really think about what would make me happy.

At one point, I ended up working at a smaller church that could not pay a full-time salary, so to support myself, I got a part-time job as a school bus driver.

In 2017, I took a vacation to Florida and visited Disney World. I remember sitting there on the last day of my vacation, in the beautiful, warm sun, by the pool, with palm trees beside me, and dreading going back to the stormy weather in New Jersey.

I felt I had to make some kind of change, or I was going to sentence myself to a miserable life.

I realized I could work as a bus driver for Disney

I first visited Disney World in 2013. I had thought it was strange — a bunch of adults, no kids, going to Disney. Yet, even on that first trip, I thought, man, what could I do to work here? There's no Disney church.

By the second time I went in 2017, I had followed Disney a lot more and saw it wasn't just for children. Now, as a school bus driver, I thought, "Oh, they do have bus drivers, and that is a legitimate career. I could actually do that."

I love Disney, and my ex-wife did, too. As huge Disney fans, we thought, why not go live in the most magical place on Earth and work there?

In 2020, at 44, I first moved to Florida

I was living out of state when I applied to be a bus driver at Disney. It's very difficult to get into it. It took several months to get to the interview, and I needed a Florida driver's license before I could get the offer.

I moved to Florida in January of 2020. After I got my license, I was put on a waiting list until a bus driver position became available. It wasn't until February 15 that I finally got the call to start the role.

For the first time in my life, I had a really stable job with all the benefits that some smaller churches aren't necessarily able to give: paid time off, pensions, retirement, things like that.

In particular, I had health insurance for the first time in a long time, and I was really happy.

I was convinced I was going to drive for Disney for the rest of my life and retire there. But in May 2022, I chose to leave after experiencing a difficult separation and divorce. I remember when I was leaving, I got the offboarding email, and it was the most gut-wrenching feeling that I had ever had.

I moved to Oregon, but I always wanted to move back

I decided to move to Oregon. I drove a city bus and things like that, but I wasn't happy.

During that time, I met another woman, now my wife, who was a big Disney fan like me. I rebranded my YouTube channel from church content to Disney around 2019, and started posting about being a Disney cast member in 2020. We met through the YouTube channel and decided to move to Florida together in 2025.

As before, I had to wait almost a year for a job opening at Disney. In the meantime, I worked for a different company contracted to drive the buses for Universal Studios.

Finally, in April 2026, at 50, I returned to Disney as a bus driver.

It's not seen as the most prestigious job, but I love it

For me, being a Disney bus driver is wonderful, but I feel like it's not the most prestigious job. Often, when people ride the bus, it's seen as just a way to get to the park.

However, it has its special moments. Once, there was a little boy visiting with his parents who, as he was getting on the bus, showed me two little toy buses. His mother told me he loved the buses so much and was so excited to show them to me. Little things like this just make my day, seeing people so excited.

I can enjoy all the magic of Disney and go to the park whenever I want. So it's the best of both worlds.

Walt Disney said, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." If you'd have told me that I was going to do something like this several years ago, I would have said, " There's no way — it's not possible. I'm too old. I don't have the finances. I don't know what I would do."

But life is too short. If you are not happy or you want to do something else, you have to make it happen.

• Edward Tian co-founded GPTZero in college, building it into a success before selling to Superhuman.
• He said he thinks that creating 'artificial scarcity' for the product contributed to its success.
• He said he'd major in the humanities, not computer science, if he went to college today.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Edward Tian, the 26-year-old cofounder of GPTZero, who's based in New York. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I was never planning to go down the founder path straight out of college. I had a visual investigations fellowship lined up for after graduation and was ready to start a journalism career.

My cofounder Alex and I went to high school together. When ChatGPT came out, he was pursuing his Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Toronto, and I was in my senior year at Princeton. Over winter break, we built an AI detection tool and put it online. The success was almost overnight.

Three years later, we sold our company, GPTZero, to Superhuman, and have stayed on board to work with the team. Superhuman is a very pro-AI company, and I think it was an unexpected move for us as an AI detection company to join them.

We didn't build GPTZero to say there should be no AI on the internet. I think that's the biggest misunderstanding about why we started our company, but my feelings on AI have changed.

I had a different job lined up for after graduation

I studied computer science at Princeton and worked with a professor at the Princeton Natural Language Processing Lab on AI research. I also worked on a few other startup projects in school, but I was always hoping to work in journalism.

While in college, I became very involved in the open-source investigation community. I ended up working on open-source investigative projects with the BBC and Bellingcat, and had a visual investigations fellowship at The New York Times lined up after graduation, which I was excited about but ultimately didn't take.

After ChatGPT came out, I was inspired to investigate where and when AI was being used online. It took about a week over winter break to build the first version of our AI detection tool, and it was released in January 2023.

We created artificial scarcity to help grow the business

My cofounder Alex and I posted on social media to market the tool so people could try it, but we didn't view it as a business right away. However, it blew up online pretty quickly. After seeing the success, we wanted to double down on the opportunity and turn it into a legitimate site.

One piece of advice I have for founders is that using a waitlist is really helpful for generating hype and excitement. We put the first version of GPTZero on a waitlist because it had reached capacity. So I think that artificial scarcity was also very helpful in the success.

We had a lucky combination of very talented engineers and some traction and buzz, so we started reaching out to VCs. Many of our early VC partners went to my alma mater, and kind of all knew each other. Jack Altman is also an investor, and I remember we had a call where I was in my dorm room, and he was like, "Oh, I recognize that dorm room too."

For founders raising funding for the first time, my advice is not to optimize for the flashiest name or the biggest brand because you think it will attract future talent. Go for where there's familiarity and trust; trust is the most important thing when working with an investor.

We raised around $3.5 million in our first funding round. I stayed at Princeton to finish my senior year and graduate, and we kept growing the business. My cofounder Alex left his Ph.D. program to focus on the business.

It was bittersweet to sell the company

When Shishir, the new CEO of Superhuman, joined in 2025, we spoke with him about his broader platform vision for a suite of products. He thought we could be part of the authenticity suite he wanted to create.

It was bittersweet to think about giving up something that we started from scratch and put so much energy and care into. At the same time, it was a lot easier because the team stayed on. I'm now a director of product at Superhuman.

For company acquisitions, a lot of folks think the three most important things for a great fit are product match, people fit, and economic sense. We had similar people philosophies, and the deal made sense financially. Then, product-wise, we realized we're definitely not against AI use anywhere in education. We just want to make sure there's some authenticity and truth with that usage.

Over the next few years, we're going to take our shot at building a startup within a larger company. I've seen a lot of startup founders go to larger companies and start their moonshots from within.

The bigger mission we have is to take steps to ensure people are being respectful of the person who's on the receiving end of AI generations and productivity now. We want it to be that we're reaping the benefits of AI without making other people deal with more work.

I wouldn't major in computer science anymore

When we first started GPTZero, I think I was actually more pro-AI than I am now. I believe people should know when something is AI-generated, but I wasn't saying not to outsource anything at all.

In the past year, though, I've started to see an over-reliance on AI among people who finished university after ChatGPT was launched, especially with writing. If I went back to college right now, I wouldn't major in computer science. I'd probably major in journalism and get a minor in computer science. I'd get a humanities degree because those are the important skills now.

I've started to see a friction point at work when people can't write or edit, and everything they send reads like AI. Part of what I'm doing now at Superhuman is working on responsible AI usage policies and guidance.

People are allowed to use these tools however they see fit. At the same time, I feel a profound sadness for the internet at large. It's important to make sure we still have human-written content online.

Do you have a story to share about working on a tiny team? If so, please reach out to the reporter at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• Viaano Spruyt first became a caregiver as a teenager when his father fell ill.
• After his father died, he moved to Australia to study and build a life there.
• Three years later, he returned home to be closer to family after his mother's health scare.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Viaano Spruyt, 29, founder of Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms. He is based in Singapore. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I first became a caregiver when I was a teenager.

My dad had an incurable respiratory disease, and he was on an oxygen tank every day. He would get breathless after walking for just a few minutes and needed help with day-to-day living.

Back then, my mom was the sole breadwinner for the family, and my sister was too young to grasp what was going on.

As the oldest child and only son, I took responsibility for his daily care. I fed him his meals and brought him to appointments at hospitals around Singapore.

He passed away when I was 19. Several years later, when I was 22, I moved to the Gold Coast in Australia on a scholarship. I earned my bachelor's in psychology, the first step toward my ambition to become a clinical psychologist.

Over the next three years, I built a real life in Australia.

I had assimilated into the culture, was in a serious relationship, and was set to pursue a master's degree. I was also in the process of applying for permanent residency.

My family was always in the back of my mind. Still, I wanted to experience life outside Singapore, and I was in the midst of building the future I thought I would have.

The call that changed everything

Then one day, I was reminded what it meant to be so far from home.

My mom was walking to catch a bus to work when her knees suddenly gave way. She kept calling me for help, but I'd missed her calls.

Unable to walk, she ended up sitting alone, crying for hours. A kind stranger eventually called for help, and she was taken to a local hospital. She was wheelchair-bound for the next few weeks. Later, she told me she wished I'd been there.

My mom is now 61 and has advanced osteoarthritis in both knees, with severe cartilage loss, meniscus damage, and joint degeneration.

When I asked why she had called me rather than my younger sister, my mom said she didn't want to distract my sister from her final exams and internship. Still, I was the first person she thought to call for help, even from thousands of miles away.

That was the exact moment I knew I had to come home.

Seeing what happened to my mom brought me back to when my dad was ill. I didn't want to be on the other side of the world when my mom was dealing with a health issue.

It wasn't just my mom. My grandparents, now in their 80s, were also getting older, and I realized my family needed me.

I came home and started over

After my mom's incident, I gave up the plans I'd made in Australia and moved back to Singapore in 2022. That was probably the hardest decision I have ever made in my life.

My Australian girlfriend moved to Singapore for a few months to see if we could build a life here instead. But things didn't work out, and we eventually ended the relationship.

Since coming back, I haven't had much of a social life.

I ended up starting Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms, with my cofounder, Fabian. Starting a company was not the path I had spent my life working toward, but it became another passion.

At this stage, my life is very much centered on work and my family, with whom I live. I choose to have no other commitments outside those two things, which gives me some room to respond when my family needs support.

I make sure my mom gets the care she needs. I take her to the hospital and arrange her treatments. I do the same for my grandparents.

When I returned, my younger sister had just started university. I wanted her to focus on her studies, so I took on more of the day-to-day care for our family.

Once my mom is doing better, I hope to move to the US to grow my company with my cofounder, while my sister and I share responsibility for supporting her.

Coming back meant starting over in a lot of ways. However, I would make that decision again and again for my mom. Always.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Michael Boyle, the 55-year-old managing director of HP Greater Asia, based in Singapore. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been at HP for more than a decade, but I'm a musician first.

I've been in rock bands for most of my life in every country I've moved to, and formed bands across different HP offices. I've moved across Singapore, Barcelona, and Sydney for different roles in the company. I'm now the managing director for Greater Asia.

I joke that I wanted to be an international rock star, which didn't quite happen, but I got to play music internationally, which is still fun.

My days are long, starting early at 6 a.m., and often ending as late as 11 p.m. Music, workouts, and curbs on phone time get me through busy days.

I'm generally an early riser, getting up at around 6 a.m.

I'm Australian, so coffee — a flat white specifically — is a very important morning ritual for me.

Typically, I'll get in a workout after that. It'll either be running, which I find the fastest and easiest, or a swim.

The first thing I don't do when I wake up is look at my phone; I avoid it for the first 10 minutes of the day to help me wake up naturally and practice gratitude.

In terms of general phone use throughout the workday, I try to use it in 10-minute bursts to get through news and that sort of thing. I'm not someone who will spend hours flicking around on the phone. I see it as a tool to get work done, jot things down, and as another interface for AI.

I do a burst of work for an hour at home

I like to get a sense of what's ahead in the day before I head into the office. I do this so I can free up my time for when I'm in the office, because I want to be fully present and part of the team.

I head to the office around 8 a.m.

Around 8 a.m., I head into the office. If I'm feeling it, I run to work. I convert documents into podcasts and listen to them while running.

As a busy executive, I often have days when I'm not at my desk, so I use AI to summarize documents, stay ahead on my emails, and manage my daily agenda. AI is helping me remove clutter, so I have time to think.

Recently, I was working on an initiative in the company, for which I needed to give a pitch. I narrated my presentation and pitch to ChatGPT first, and it gave me feedback on where I was going off track, where I was staying on track, what the key punchline was, and suggestions for keeping the group engaged.

It trained me and gave me real-time feedback. Whereas in the past, I would've done that in a vacuum. I'd be in a hotel room, talking to a wall and thinking, "I hope this goes OK."

There are so many ways this tool can help us become better leaders, make time to think, and, hopefully, be more effective.

I leave the office at 6 p.m.

Daily exercise is non-negotiable for me; I find it's the best way to stay fresh and happy. I'm a 10,000-step person, often running back home from the office to get my steps in.

When I get home from the office, I don't look at my phone or anything for a while. That's blocked out for family.

As a family, we're very big on no device use at the dinner table. I'm happy to say that my twin daughters can go out to dinner and leave their phones at home, which is pretty rare for 21-year-olds. We've taught them a few good things.

At about 9 p.m. I have to fire up again for late meetings

The company is based in the US, so I often have meetings late into the night because of the time difference.

If I need to stay up late at night for international meetings, the best way is to pick up the guitar — it wakes me up again. It's my hack for when I don't want to drink coffee.

I just have to make sure I don't keep playing during my meetings.

At around 11 p.m., my batteries run out

I'm not very productive after that, so that's the end of my day.

At home, I'll play guitar and drums for at least an hour or two every weekend. That's when I allow myself to unplug and put my brain into neutral.

• Rick Nott has used AI to save himself a lot of tedious work as a wealth advisor.
• He said new AI products may help other advisors save time too, but they won't replace humans.
• Nott spoke to Business Insider about how he uses the technology to save him time now.

Rick Nott is a senior managing director and private wealth advisor at Santa Monica, California-based Angeles Wealth Management. He spoke to Business Insider about how he uses AI, and why he's excited and afraid when looking at AI-native financial planning platforms. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When Claude first rolled out its solution for financial advisors, I felt fear and excitement. How complicated will it be? How will it work?

I'm not a software developer, but I have some basic tech skills. LLMs have allowed me to dig into coding, which I'd been avoiding learning because it's a lot of work. I know enough to know what I want, how it should look, and how to check the outputs, and now I can automate more of my process. AI has become the glue between the various systems we use and the different workflows we have.

I've shown some colleagues how I operate. One told me that I basically have another full-time employee's worth of output through the technology, by automating data collection processes and making it easier to analyze my clients' portfolios.

What AI unlocks

I started my career while still in college in the late 2000s doing data reporting work for a wealth firm. Between all of the software advisors use, there's a lot of manual work, typically done in Excel, to connect it together.

Previously, I could only provide balance sheet reporting for clients with more than $100 million because it took so much manual work. Now I can do it with someone with significantly less.

As a family's net worth grows, so does complexity. For many, understanding their overall financial system is their biggest pain point.

Banks and brokerage accounts are the easy part, but trusts, business ownership structures, and private investments, which all report differently and require cash on hand to make capital calls, can take huge amounts of manual work to analyze.

Imagine a wealth advisory business serving 30 families, each holding about 10 private investments. Each investment generates about 10 documents a year, including quarterly reports, capital calls, distribution notices, and tax documents. Each of these 3,000 documents takes a skilled analyst 15 to 30 minutes to analyze and distill into our reports.

That's 750 to 1,500 hours a year, most of it crammed into the few weeks after each quarter closes. With AI, that data is extracted and mapped as it arrives, and one analyst reviews the work instead of a team racing against a deadline.

Our goal is to create a one-page document or report on their phone that's as close to real-time as possible.

There's a lot you can do with all of your data in one place. For example, a two- or three-sentence prompt could expand into a full email to a client, with all relevant and accurate information already populated. You can then personalize that to fit the right tone for your client.

How AI changes the job

AI tools like Claude for financial advisors will be disruptive, and others will gain access to the same connectivity I've built.

I think of it as part of a dynamic that's been going on for years in my industry. Vanguard, ETFs, lower costs, and robo-advisors have all put a squeeze on financial advisors.

But if you believe a lawyer's only job is writing contracts, or a financial advisor's only job is putting together a portfolio, there's a fundamental kind of misunderstanding of what the actual job is.

As long as investing involves human judgment, financial advisors will have a job. AI doesn't improve investment decisions or results.

I tell my clients that my role is to be the architect of their financial operating system, and, as with an actual operating system, a centralized source of data is essential.

When you have a big-picture view of what your family's mission is, you can avoid getting distracted by market noise and news. From there, you can go a layer down to make strategic plans and ask if we're moving in the right direction, and what opportunities we may have. Another layer down, we work with a CPA to save money on taxes.

A full picture of a balance sheet makes it possible to actually know what liquidity you have available. Now I can spend more time developing relationships, the thing that runs our business. I get to know anything and everything about the clients I'm working with and those I'd like to work with.

The future of financial advisors and AI

I have a natural excitement around tech, and watching the Anthropic webinar was incredible. My main concern is that it's not a subscription-based plan; it's token-based, which could lead to surprise bills for users who don't yet know how to manage their token usage.

At small RIAs without the expertise, people will be uploading 100-page PDF documents just to ask basic questions, like the ages of kids in a trust. That will rip through tokens.

We priced it out internally, and we would have to pay significantly more for a token-based plan instead of the subscription-based licenses we have now. Maybe eventually everyone will have to pay for tokens that way, and the cost of tokens is going down.

We learn to do things faster and at lower cost, but in this industry, we do that for a particular reason: to spend more time with the people we serve.

The primary way that our clients give us information is still by talking. There's a significant amount of nuance. You may be able to understand something and infer what's really being said. But note-taking software is still wrong all the time. You have to review it.

Money is emotional, and I seriously question whether AI can replace our need to connect with another human being.

Do I see someone sitting across the table from AI on a speakerphone? Probably not.