A Message from Our CEO – September 2026

“You will never amount to anything”

– Every parent to kids born in the 70’s. 

Gen Xers will appreciate this. At 13, I got bonked in the head by a long fly ball playing center field. After the inning, I hustled to the dugout. My coach said, “you better get ice on that.” The first baseman quipped, “There is no ice. Life is hard and then you die.”

This was a common refrain in my coming-of-age experience. The message: We expect little from your generation… but if you’re tough and can handle the punches, you will make it in this world.

Little did we know this turned into our superpower. These self-reliant latch-key kids turned into the biggest risk-takers and entrepreneurs and problem solvers the world has seen. Clean up after the Boomers. Get the job done with no drama.

Fast forward to today. What message is Gen Z getting? We expect you to be exceptional. To back that up, there are a zillion hours of influencer content telling them what to wear, eat, and drink. They're hyper-wired with digital tools that keep them "optimized" and "on track."

No wonder so many of them feel like they're coming up short.

It's not just a hunch. A national study on workplace confidence, reported in Fast Company, found that 48% of Gen Z workers frequently or consistently feel they are "not enough." Nearly half regularly compare themselves with others and battle a harsh inner critic.

That's not a talent problem or a work-ethic problem. It's a confidence problem, and it shows up at work: decisions get second-guessed, ideas go unsaid, responsibility gets dodged, deadlines slide. Eventually, they start wondering if they'd fit better somewhere else.

Social media gets plenty of the blame. Seventy-three percent of working Americans in the study say it contributes significantly to young people's confidence struggles. But we did our part too. We told Gen Z they could change the world, find meaningful work, protect their mental health, reject bad bosses, and be their authentic selves while delivering exceptional results. That's a heavy résumé for a 24-year-old. 

Put sky-high expectations next to a 24/7 highlight reel, and every ordinary mistake starts to look like proof you're falling behind.

My first baseman was half right. Life is hard. But the fix isn't to withhold the ice, and it isn't to lower the bar. It's to let young employees learn what we learned the hard way: confidence comes from doing, not from already knowing.

So give them real responsibility. Let them make decisions. Let them get it wrong now without turning a mistake into a verdict on their potential.

Gen X built confidence because nobody expected much of us. Gen Z will have to build it because everyone expects so much.

Either way, confidence isn't a soft skill. It's part of the job.

Own. Your. Mistakes.

– Warren