Business

Wharton professor says employees are hiding A.I. useand potentially transformative productivity gainsfrom employers

Artificial intelligence is enabling new ways of accomplishing tasks, and at many companies employees are taking full advantage of it to do their jobs better. Theres just one problem: They often keep quiet about it.

Ethan Mollick, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, described the problem Sunday on his blog One Useful Thing. He knows first-hand about A.I. productivity boosts: Earlier this year, he gave tools like ChatGPT 30 minutes to work on a business projectand called the results superhuman.

People are streamlining tasks, taking new approaches to coding, and automating time-consuming and tedious parts of their jobs, he writes. But the inventors arent telling their companies about their discoveries.

Employees have reasons to keep quiet about their A.I. use, he notes, even if their discoveries could transform the company they work for.

Mostly they want to stay out of trouble.

Many companies have banned ChatGPT use, often because of legal concerns that remain somewhat vague, based on uncertainty over the technology and regulatory worries, he writes.

A.I. on the sly

In some cases, bans are causing employees to bring their phones into work and access AI from personal devices. While data is hard to come by, I have already met many people at companies where AI is banned who are using this workaroundand those are just the ones willing to admit it.

Employees might also want to hide the fact that A.I. produced some or all of their work, fearing how it might be perceived and judged differently if supervisors knew.

Some workers could be worried theyre training their own replacements. As Mollick writes: If someone has figured out how to automate 90% of a particular job, and they tell their boss, will the company fire 90% of their coworkers? Better to keep usage secret, and avoid any risk.

Earlier this year, a leaked video showed the CEO of marketing firm telling staff, Many content writers today are now exclusively using A.I. to write. I can do that in about 30 minutes of an eight-hour workday. So what do we need to do? Lets put out 30 to 50 times our normal production.

The trust advantage

Mollick believes companies must find ways to encourage workers to come forward with their A.I. use. That could mean promotions, cash prizes, or corner offices. These are small prices to pay for truly breakthrough innovation, he notes.

They must also guarantee that nobody will be punished or fired for coming forward with their A.I.-enhanced work methods.

This is where organizations with high degrees of trust and good cultures will have an advantage, Mollick adds. If your employees dont believe that you care about them, they will keep their A.I. use hidden.

The woman who created Father's Day was a funeral home director who led a local celebration for over 60 years before it became a federal holiday

You could call her the mother of Fathers Day.

The late Sonora Smart Dodd launched the celebration of dads in 1910 in her hometown of Spokane, Washington. As a result, she is the one responsible for those annual gifts that run the gamut from embarrassingly silly-looking neckties to kids finger paintings crafted with so much love by those tiny hands that they can bring a tear to the eye of even the most stoic father.

Its a tradition Dodd decided to start as she sat in a Spokane church on Mothers Day 1909, listening to a sermon about what else? Mothers Day.

And it bugged her, Dodds great-granddaughter, Betsy Roddy, told The Associated Press in 2017. She thought, Well, why isnt there a Fathers Day?

Dodd and her five younger brothers, after all, had been raised by their father after their mother died in childbirth in 1898.

William Jackson Smart became a farmer after fighting in the Civil War. He not only held down both parental roles but did it with leadership and love, his daughter always said, and she believed he ought to get some credit.

So she worked tirelessly with the local clergy and got the YWCA on board, and they had their first Fathers Day in Spokane in 1910, said Roddy, displaying a copy of The River Press of Fort Benton, Montana, which reported on the event.

Although that story predicted the celebration would go nationwide by the next year, Fathers Day was slow to catch on. So much so that Dodd spent the next 62 years lobbying everyone from presidents to retailers for support.

Finally, in 1972, President Richard Nixon declared the third Sunday of June a federal holiday honoring dads. Dodd, who died at age 96 in 1978, had lived to see her dream come true.

A Renaissance woman, the Mother of Fathers Day was a painter, poet and businesswoman, running a funeral home with her husband while raising the couples only son, a future father named Jack.

I take a great deal of pride in that renegade spirit that she clearly had, said Roddy, marketing director for a large Los Angeles company.

Dodds great-granddaughter inherited some of that spirit herself. Raised in Washington, D.C., she earned a bachelors degree in English from Penn State before heading to Europe for several years of backpacking between studies at Viennas Webster University, where she earned a masters degree in international business.

Moving to Los Angeles decades ago, she found her niche here in marketing and stayed, eventually moving into a Craftsman-style home on the citys west side, where she lives with her two dogs.

The only child of an only child and recently widowed after 24 years of marriage, Roddy never had children of her own. That not only leaves her with the title of Great-Granddaughter of Fathers Day but also assures she is the last direct descendant of the holidays creator.

Although shes always been well aware of that legacy, shes never talked about it publicly until now.

She began to get more involved after MyHeritage.com, the company that helps people trace family histories, asked if she knew her familys story.

Learning that she did, MyHeritage dug up historical documents about Dodd that Roddy says even she and her mother didnt know existed. They are considering eventually turning over some of their artifacts to a museum.

As a child, Roddy said, she loved her great-grandmother deeply, visited her every year and treasures the poems, books and notes she gave her, including one welcoming her to the world on the year she was born. She still keeps it, in pristine condition, in a small box in her home.

Still, as a child, Roddy says, she took Fathers Day largely for granted, concluding the elaborate celebration, including the special card for her great-grandmother, was just something her family did. Even as an adult, shes generally kept quiet about being the ultimate Fathers Day insider, leaving it to her mother to spread the word.

But no more.

Its time for me to pick up the baton and carry it proudly, she says with a smile. Im the last direct descendant. The legacy is here, which is an honor.

___

This story was first published in 2017. Rogers retired from The Associated Press in 2021.

Ford chairman says U.S. is unprepared to compete with China in electric vehicles: They developed very quickly

Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. said the US is not quite yet ready to compete with China in the production of electric vehicles and said his company is taking an all hands on deck approach to prepare.

They developed very quickly, and theyve developed them in large scale, and now they are exporting, Ford said in an interview on CNNs Fareed Zakaria GPS. They are not here, but they will come here we think at some point and we need to be ready, and were getting ready.

China is poised to become the worlds No. 2 exporter of passenger vehicles, potentially reshaping the global auto industry and shaking up the dominance of its car trading partners and rivals. Overseas shipments of cars made in China have tripled since 2020 to reach more than 2.5 million last year, challenging traditional car exporters such as Germany.

Ford announced this year it will invest $3.5 billion in an electric-vehicle battery plant in Michigan, stirring political controversy by saying itll operate with technology and support from Chinas Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg addressed the challenge in a Bloomberg Television interview Sunday, saying the US must take steps to cut into Chinas advantage in EV batteries and that building the refining capacity for key materials is addressable.

The US has to ensure it is positioning to have an economically sensible, environmentally sensible and geopolitically stable approach to how were going to get these vitally important elements in our economy that are only to grow in importance, Buttigieg said.

Ford, great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, said he sees an opportunity for Ford engineers to understand the technology.

All we are doing is licensing the technology, he said. Thats really important that our engineers gain that knowledge so we can eventually do it ourselves.

Ford pushed back on the idea that US-based production will force prices to rise, arguing that making things in America matters and that manufacturing jobs have a multiplier effect that can lead to a stronger economy.

Once you start to come down the cost curve, and you start climbing up the production curve, the cost will come down, and theyre coming down even as we are sitting here, Ford said.

China is already deeply involved in electric cars in Europe, where the China-made vehicles sold are mostly electric models from Tesla Inc. Chinese-owned former European brands such as Volvo and MG, and other models like Dacia Spring or the BMW iX3, are also produced exclusively in China.

The Flash races to box office lead but Asteroid City nabs highest per-theater average since start of pandemic

Though a fair amount of money by normal standards, a sizable jump from DCs last release, the Shazam! sequel, and enough for a first place start, its also muted by superhero standards where $100 million debut weekends are almost commonplace.

It was a crowded weekend at the multiplex overall. In addition to The Flash there was the new Pixar family film Elemental and the horror-comedy The Blackening. The only big win was Wes Andersons starry Asteroid City which earned $720,000 from just six theaters and the distinction of having the highest per-theater average ($132,211) since the start of the pandemic.

The Flash faced more complications than marketplace conditions. It has been in the headlines often over the past year, not because of the movie itself but because of its star Ezra Millers off-screen troubles, including arrests, erratic behavior and accusations of misconduct. Miller has apologized and said they are seeking mental health treatment. They also bowed out of participating in the normal publicity circuit, except for the premiere.

The studios leadership remained bullish on releasing their $200 million movie, however, confident in its quality and importance to future DC Studios storylines. The movie introduces the multiverse, which allowed for the return of Michael Keatons Batman in a movie that also had Ben Afflecks Batman.

Going into the weekend analysts expected The Flash to earn at least $70 million in its first three days, playing in 4,234 locations domestically. Now, its projected to net out with $64 million in its first four, including Mondays Juneteenth holiday.

Critics were mixed but more positive than not, with a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. APs Jocelyn Noveck wrote in her review that despite some breezily clever and entertaining moments, the final act bogs down in what feels like an endless, generic CGI battle and a kitchen-sink resolution.

Audiences polled for CinemaScore only gave the film a B, which has not historically been great news for word-of-mouth potential and longevity. But there is a bit of a gap in the schedule before the next major blockbuster comes in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which opens on June 30. Next weeks biggest offering is the R-rated Jennifer Lawrence comedy No Hard Feelings and the nationwide expansion of Asteroid City.

Second place went to Elemental with an estimated $29.5 million from 4,035 locations in North America a new low for Pixars three-day openings. Before, that title belonged to The Good Dinosaur and Onward, which both debuted to $39 million.

Elemental was greeted positively by critics, with a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences (A CinemaScore). APs Jake Coyle wrote that its probably in the lower half of the Pixar cannon but sincere and clever, with a splash of dazzle, it, comes closer to rekindling some of the old Pixar magic than some recent entries. Including $15 million from 17 international territories, Elemental launched to $44.5 million globally.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was a very close third, in its third weekend, with $27.8 million. Sony is projecting that its domestic total will have reached $285 million through Monday.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts dropped a steep 67% in its second weekend, adding $20 million to take fourth place. The Little Mermaid settled into fifth place with $11.6 million in its fourth weekend.

The Blackening was the other big release this weekend a bit of counterprogramming to the bigger branded releases with an original horror-comedy about a group of friends, who are Black, who get together for a weekend away and find themselves on the run from a killer. Lionsgate and MRC acquired the $5 million movie from director Tim Story after it debuted to positive reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival. Released in 1,775 theaters, The Blackening made an estimated $6 million.

Melinda French Gates urges bold action from world leaders gathered in Paris to tackle poor nations debt woes

Melinda French Gates is urging world leaders gathering in Paris this week to take bolder action to reform the global financial system and offer a way out of growing debt woes for places like Africa.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, French Gates said too many African countries are emerging from the coronavirus pandemic with debt loads that are forcing them to contemplate sacrificing investments in social programs with proven long-term benefits to make short-term payments. This also comes as they struggle to raise funds to confront climate catastrophes.

French Gates, 58, likened the dilemma to a life-or-death version of the choices families in the rich world have made in the face of the highest inflation in decades.

You talk to those finance ministers, theyre saying I have to make tradeoffs, just like a household has to make tradeoffs, the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said. Theyre in these terrible situations of making tradeoffs between Do I continue to invest in those primary health clinics that are leading people to live healthier lives? Do I pull back on education? Where do I pull back, given I have to spend so much money servicing my debt?

French President Emmanuel Macron and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley are convening the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact on Thursday to discuss how to create a more inclusive successor to the western-led Bretton Woods institutions that have financed development and economic rescues since the 1940s. Leaders and senior policymakers including Chinese premier Li Qiang, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are scheduled to attend.

How Aid for Poor Nations With Big Debts Got Stuck: QuickTake

French Gates said she was hopeful that momentum was building for a global solution to the debt problems and to reform the International Monetary Fund and World Bank via a series of meetings this year, including this weeks summit.

She was also optimistic that the US and China could overcome geopolitical differences that have complicated Group of 20 efforts to hammer out a new set of global rules for creditors and debtors caught up in the debt throes. The pandemic, soaring food prices, higher borrowing costs and the stronger dollar driven by the US Federal Reserves campaign against inflation have worsened the burden.

Turning Inward

My biggest concern is that the high-income countries completely turn inward and just say We have our own problems at home, so were just going to let that languish, she said.

The world is now too interconnected for citizens in the US or other rich countries to be able to ignore problems outside their borders, whether they be wildfires caused by climate change or the growing number of people going hungry.

Its reminding people we are part of a global economy, like it or not, she said. We just have to call on the better nature of people and just say Look, its not just about me at home, its about everybody.

French Gates said the IMF and World Bank are the best institutions to lead a new push to resolve the growing debt problems in the developing world. She also endorsed a G-20 effort to draft new common rules to address how to handle debt relief.

But those institutions need urgent reform and for shareholders to give them more financial resources, she said.

Wealthy countries also need to think more creatively by taking measures such as reallocating or onlending their share of $650 billion in new IMF reserves released in 2021 known as special drawing rights to poorer nations.

The institutions have served us incredibly well, French Gates said. But the frameworks that are in place as the G-20 nations are expressing very vociferously they arent working right now.

The extra funding is also needed to close an even larger economic gap left by the pandemic, which pushed some 70 million people into extreme poverty globally in 2020, according to the World Bank.

While rich countries spent 20% of their gross domestic product to prop up their economies and social services during the pandemic the equivalent figure for low-income countries was only around 3%, French Gates said.

Despite rising geopolitical tensions between China and the US and Western allies, any efforts to address debt problems and issues plaguing the developing world must include Beijing, she said.

Earlier: Xi Tells Gates China Is Willing to Engage in Tech Cooperation

China has to be at the table, she added, pointing to Chinese investment in Africa and its inescapable position as the largest creditor to many countries on the continent.

She also expressed confidence that Washington and Beijing could overcome their public differences and work together on things like securing debt relief and future funds for poor countries.

The US does not want to be in a war with China. China does not want to be in the war with the US, right? So at the end of the day, theres going to have to be some give and take, French Gates said. The countries will do the right things. I think its going to come out OK.

With assistance from Sydney Maki.

Recession timing key for Biden reelection bidthis year would be less damaging than early 2024, history suggests

If a recession is going to come in the next 12 months and most economists surveyed by Bloomberg say it probably is then President Joe Biden should hope it begins sooner rather than later.

The last three one-term presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Donald Trump have all had their reelection hopes felled by an economic downturn.

But the list of presidents who survived recessions on their watch is just as long. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush all won reelection in the first two cases by landslides.

The difference, for the most part, is timing.

Two-term presidents get recessions out of the way early. One-term presidents have bad economic news as voters are deciding.

That means a short recession that begins soon offering the chance for a rebound by Election Day 2024 might be the best-case scenario for Democrats.

The historical record suggests that a recession in the second half of 2023 would probably be less damaging to the presidents reelection prospects than a recession in the first half of 2024, said Larry Bartels, who studies the intersection of politics and economics at Vanderbilt University. But he also said theres not much that Biden can do at this point to change the direction of the economy in the short term.

The economic projections accompanying the Federal Reserves decision to hold interest rates Wednesday suggest that policymakers see less likelihood of a downturn than before. Officials median forecast for gross domestic product growth rose from 0.4% to 1% in 2023, with the expansion expected to pick up slightly in 2024 and 2025.

Bond traders responded to the rate decision with a signal that theyre expecting an increased likelihood of a recession in the next year.

A 65% Chance

The typical modern recession lasts 10 months, so an early, short and shallow recession would give Biden time to regain his economic footing. A late, long and deep recession could put Biden among the list of one-term presidents whose time in the White House was cut short by an untimely slump.

The consensus of economists in a Bloomberg survey shows a 65% chance of a recession in the next 12 months, up from 31% a year ago.

The same survey shows an expectation for a return to modest growth in real gross domestic product next year, with growth approaching 2%. Thats tepid in historical terms, but could be a welcome trajectory for Democrats.

Its not the absolute level of the economy. Its the direction of the economy six months out from the elections that really influences the vote, said Celinda Lake, who served as Bidens pollster in 2020.

While theyve largely directed their fire on each other over social and cultural issues, 2024 Republican presidential candidates have criticized Bidens stewardship of the economy, blaming him for an inflation rate that in mid-2022 reached 9.1%, its highest point in four decades. But that spike has now ebbed to 4% in data out Tuesday.

Former Vice President Mike Pence mentioned a looming recession in his campaign announcement video last week, and former President Donald Trump has asserted for nearly a year that the US is already in a recession.

Biden, for his part, isnt conceding that a recession is inevitable. Theyve been telling me since I got elected were going to be in a recession, he said earlier this year.

In a campaign speech to union members in Philadelphia Saturday, Biden touted the progress the economy has made since the pandemic recession, and said legislation on infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductors will help build for the long term.

The investments weve made these past three years have the power to transform this country for the next five decades, he said. And guess whos going to be at the center of that transformation? You.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said recession predictions keep turning out like pollsters calls before the midterms: wrong.

But in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this month, Biden also acknowledged that the US must look out for risks and guard against them.

Lake said thats the right tone. There was a time in the economic conversation when his optimism seemed out of touch with whats going on, she said. Now he says, I get it. Its good but its not good enough.

Misery index

Every recession is different, so its hard to know how and when the coming downturn will manifest itself.

What Bloomberg Economics Says:

We see a mild and relatively short recession unfolding toward the end of Q3 this year. Growth will likely contract in the second half of 2023 led by a contraction in business investment, while household spending remains slightly positively. The recovery will be tepid in 2024, as still-elevated inflation will keep the Fed from aggressively cutting interest rates as they had in past recessions.

Anna Wong, chief US economist.

The misery index, which combines unemployment and inflation, will probably decline by November 2024, said Joel Prakken, co-head of US Economics for S&P Global Market Intelligence. But those numbers alone might not be reflected in voter sentiment.

Inflation is intolerably high, unemployment unsustainably low, he said. This will feel bad, whatever label our profession ultimately attaches to it.

Political economist Christopher Wlezien of the University of Texas at Austin suggests that voters start to pay attention to the presidents management of the economy after the midterms, effectively giving presidents a two-year pass on the economy they inherited from their predecessors.

If thats the case, Biden is already in the danger zone.

Voters are myopic, Wlezien said. They do not look into the distant past, but they do look fairly far, about two years back.

With assistance from Anna Wong (Economist).

Meet the planterior designer reviving workers Zoom backgrounds with plant walls and greenery

There are plant people, and then there are plant enthusiasts. Tiffany Mah, 28, is a step beyond: Curating houseplants and assembling plant walls for prime Zoom backgrounds is her job.

Mah, who lives in Toronto, is the houseplant consultant and plant stylist behind Plant Mahmah, her one-woman-owned-and-operated LLC. But stay tunedshe says shes hoping to make planterior designer a thing.

Fortune spoke with her about her about how she went from environmental engineer to entrepreneur, how shes built her business, and what shes angling to do in the future.

This conversation has been lightly condensed for clarity.

What is a houseplant consultant/stylist?

I made the title up because there are many other plant interior landscapers out there, but I specifically work with houseplants. Ive called myself all kinds of things before landing on this.

I do with plants what an interior designer does with furniture and space. I enter an office or a home and assess the lighting, the lifestyle, and aesthetic of the people who live there, and I recommend plants and decor pieces I think would fit with and thrive in their space.

I dont just see houseplants as decor pieces. They really are a living, breathing thing that helps us slow down and be more mindful. Also, they add greenery and purifying elements to our spaces.

How do most people react when you tell them what you do?

Most of the time people just ask what it is. Most of my friends now know what I do and have been following my career for a while, but I know a lot of new people I meet will be like, Ive never heard of that, tell me everything. The simplest term I use to explain it is, basically, I plantify peoples spaces and teach them how to take care of plants.

What would you normally be doing at this time of the day?

It changes every dayand by time of year. Spring and summer are busy season, and the winter is slower, but I still find a lot of people running into plant problems. On a typical Wednesday, Im either sourcing plants at local nurseries, looking for different types of pots and ceramics, or doing in-home plant consultations.

Its growing season right now, so everyone wants a nice, warm plant in their space. Many people, this time of year, are asking for repotting or are coming in for consults to diagnose whats wrong with their plants.

Whats your job background?

I studied to become an environmental engineer. But during my last year of school, I had a bad brain injurymy second serious concussion. A month after that, I lost one of my best friends to an accident. Dealing with two really traumatic events in a short period of time made me reassess whether engineering was the path for me. (Editors note: Mah ended up going into engineering after graduating, but continued to suffer from Post-Concussion Syndrome.)

Concussion symptoms vary from person to person, but I was getting headaches from any type of stimulus. Everything became such exacerbations of my symptoms. I really had to isolate myself from what I was doing. That led me to gardening and developing a plant hobby. I needed an activity that would allow me to slow down, work with my hands, and reconnect with nature.

I remember vividly: It was dead of winter. I was looking for something to do with nature. I walked into my local greenhouse for the first time and felt transported into an oasis. I was connected with nature in such a peaceful and serene way. In my current position, I really try to incorporate plant therapy into what I do daily.

We can have such a symbiotic relationship with plants and greenery in our homes and offices. In my previous job, I was a water resources engineer. I had a lot to do with green roof development.

Eventually, I wanted to take Plant Mahmah to the next level, and I felt I couldnt do it without quitting my engineering job, which I did February 2022.

Do you have anyone helping you or working under you?

Because Im a one-woman business right now, I do it all. I wear every hat under the sun. Not only am I the plant consultant, Im also the content creator, social media manager, book manager, and I do all the administrative tasks.

Would you consider hiring a team?

I think thats the next step, whether thats hiring other plant technicians or stylists or having on-staff bookkeepers or social media managers. There are tasks I know I dont have to do myself anymore, and Ive gotten to a point where I dont have to do everything myself, and Id like to outsource those things.

Is plant styling the only way you make money?

For a lot of last year, my income came from paid partnerships with different plant or home decor brands like Home Depot. Shooting and creating content for different brands has been part of my job from the start as well.

Im not working any other part-time jobs, but I still pick up different social media campaigns to pay the bills. This year, I really have focused on going full-time with just plant styling. Most of my income has come from that, and some has come from sponsored posts on my Plant MahMah accounts.

Lately, 90% of my income comes from plant-related jobs. Last year, it was more of a 60:40 split between that and content creation. I also sell some plant products on Etsy and my online shop, and I negotiate with my favorite plant product brands for higher commissions.

Im able to support myself. My first year, I only broke even. Now, in my second year, Ive already made as much as I made all of last year, but I still havent replaced my engineer salaryyet. (Editors note: Documents provided to Fortune show Mah made nearly $40,000 last year, and $40,000 so far this year.)

Whats the most challenging part of your job?

Managing and wearing all the hats. Im really in the thick of it now.

As a 9-to-5 engineer, I had a set list of tasks to do and could call it quits at 5 p.m. Whereas, being an entrepreneur, I dont have set hours, and I feel like Im always working, and have to always be on. Its been difficult to find that balance, especially because Plant Mahmah is such a personal brand, its hard to separate.

What do you like best about your job?

Interacting with the plants and greenery and being able to see how big an impact plants can have on spacesand peoples lives. I check back in with clients periodically to see how their plants are settling in.

What are the typical education requirements for a job like this, if any?

Id recommend going to school for horticulture, botany, or environmental studies, but I dont think its absolutely necessary. Theres a low barrier to entry for the interior landscaping niche.

Whats the life cycle of a client?

We start with a virtual plant consultation, usually over Zoom. I have clients all over the world, mostly in the U.S. For local customers, I can come in, source and style potted houseplants or start to assemble a plant wall. I give long-distance clients an intake form where Ill ask how much time they want to spend caring for their plants, from very hands off to helicopter parent. That allows me to curate my plan of action for what were going to do together.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

My mission statement is really to bring the benefit of plants to everyone and make plants accessible to everyone, because I truly do believe plants are the gateway to healing. Theyve brought me so much joy, and I want to continue that on a larger scale. Id like to expand beyond just doing local installations in Toronto; I want to bring plant therapy worldwide. I dont know how, but Ive got to dream big.

I also want to continue growing Plant Mahmahs revenue streams. I have the consultations and stylings, but I want to grow the plant wall product and my online workshops. That goes back to making plant care more accessible to everybody.

I also would love to see Plant Mahmah styling in different spaces too. Im used to styling for my Canadian climate, but Id love to be able to style one day for a warmer region, like Florida.

Plants are a reflection of how much I care for myself. Theyve brought me a lot of joy, but also allowed me to pause, take a moment, and be mindful of how Im feeling and where Im at daily.