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Is it too late to wish everyone a happy new year? We’re back this week after taking a short holiday vacation and have a newsletter filled with the biggest work-related news to kick off the year. (And if you’re struggling to get back into the flow of work, senior contributor Jack Kelly has some great tips on how to ease back in.)
The start of 2025 brings some good news for workers in many U.S. states: Minimum wages rose in 21 states and Washington, D.C. at the start of the year, giving 9.2 million workers $5.7 billion in additional earnings, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. This marks one of the largest-ever state minimum wage increases in recent U.S. history. But while the hikes are a result of successful ballot measures to raise state wage floors, the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour and has not increased since 2009.
Several other cities and municipalities—predominantly in California, Colorado and Washington—are raising their hourly minimums above state floors. Workers in Tukwila, Washington will have the highest minimum hourly wage this year at $21.10 an hour. Other cities, like New York, are raising their minimum overtime exemption pay for salaried employees.
The new year also welcomes new pay transparency laws in five states: Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and Vermont. In total, 14 states, Washington D.C. and several city or county jurisdictions require employers to publish salary ranges with job postings. Pay transparency requirements have gained popularity in recent years and have largely been pushed through by local jurisdictions. A federal bill on the matter was introduced to Congress in 2023.
Happy reading, and hope you all have a lovely week!
WORK SMARTER
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CAREERS ADVICE Q&A: “Inner Excellence” Author Jim Murphy
If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to read more, you may want to take inspiration from Philadelphia Eagles player A.J. Brown. The wide receiver was photographed reading a book called “Inner Excellence” on the sidelines of Sunday’s playoff game (which the team won). The book, written by Jim Murphy, has topped Amazon’s best seller’s list since Monday. I sat down with Murphy to speak about the new eyes in his book, what inner excellence is really about, and what everyone—from football players to desk workers—can take away from its message. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Jim, let’s start from the top. What is “inner excellence”?
Well, it’s really about being clear about what you want most. It’s about asking yourself, “Why am I doing this? Why am I working? Like, what do I really want?” Because especially in America, there is this huge obsession about achievement, getting more financially successful and getting a better house, etc. Or this obsession with making more money and taking more trips to Europe. There’s this obsession with that. But why is it like this?
So it’s really about the journey to the destination and not the achievement itself.
Yes.
Your own personal experience is coming from being and working with professional athletes. How can those who work traditional 9-to-5s also achieve this inner excellence?
The thesis of the book really is that self-centeredness is the biggest challenge we face in performance and in life. It leads to fear, because your subconscious knows in your heart it’s what’s running your life. And it knows every weakness, every failure. And so when you think about yourself, it reminds yourself of that. So then you start to compare yourself to others and feel bad, then you get stressed and anxious. Whereas when you’re performing your best at anything, all of us, whether it’s you for a deadline or me coaching, or A.J. Brown catching footballs, we’re our best when there’s no thoughts about self. That’s what inner excellence is about, is how you get to be fully alive and then everything in your life expands and improves.
So how do you achieve it?
The number one goal every day is to learn and grow. Within that are the four daily goals. Number one is to give your best shot every day. Give a hundred percent of what you have today. It’s also really important to realize you’re not gonna be your best all the time, and that’s okay. That’s life. You don’t need to be at your best. We just want to give the best of what you have. Some days you’re only gonna have 50% give, so give a hundred percent of that 50.
Number two is to be present. When you’re fully present, there’s no fear. There’s no past or future. There’s no self concern, no self-protection. So inner excellence is really about mastering the ego, pursuing what you really want and the person you’re meant to become. So you can live a life fully engaged heart, mind, body, independent of your result and circumstances.
Number three is gratitude, which is directly linked to inner peace, inner strength and mental toughness. To improve your gratitude, we wanna look for three small moments every day. The smallest moments to train your subconscious to have more gratitude. And number four is to focus on your routines and only what you can control.
The book’s latest version was published five years ago. How was it finding out about this viral moment that led to so many people buying a copy this week?
So it’s interesting. I’m in downtown Dallas on Sunday, and I don’t know anyone here except for my clients, and I haven’t seen them yet. So I’m looking at this skyscraper and I’m all by myself, kind of lonely, and I look up at it and I was like, “huh, would I trade owning that skyscraper for having understood and written my second book?” And I thought I wouldn’t. So really putting the Inner Excellence thinking into practice. I hadn’t watched the [Eagles versus Packers] game yet, and then all these messages started coming into my phone and then everything unfolded.
TOUCH BASE
News from the world of work
The Pentagon is using AI technology to vet its employees, Forbes’ Emily Baker-White and Rashi Shrivastava report. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), which is in charge of approving and denying 95% of security clearances for the U.S. government, is using AI tech to organize and analyze investigation data.
AI agents could finally make Siri more useful, reports Richard Nieva. AI agents—software coded to perform specific tasks like booking a reservation or making a purchase online—are key to making the popular voice assistants even more user-friendly.
It’s only the second full week of 2025 and thousands of American workers have already been laid off from their jobs. Employees at Meta, Microsoft, BlackRock, Bridgewater Associates, The Washington Post and others have been let go from their positions. Here’s what you should do if you’ve been laid off.
Return-to-office mandates snap back: Toyota is the latest major company to call its corporate workers back into the office. According to Bloomberg, the carmaker is asking its salaried employees to be in-office four days a week starting September 2, though the policy excludes holiday 4-day weeks like July Fourth.
As the wildfires continue to wreak havoc across Southern California, here’s how small businesses can get up to $2 million in disaster loans, even if they weren’t burned, Forbes’ Brandon Kochkodin reports. Not a small business owner? Nonprofits and even individual homeowners and renters can also qualify for SBA disaster loans.
NUMBER TO NOTE
71%
That’s the percentage of American workers surveyed by My Perfect Resume who say they rely on a secondary income.
VIDEO
Take a Look At The Top Career Comebacks of 2024
QUIZ
Which of the following names was NOT in Forbes’ list of biggest career crashes of 2024?
A. Elon Musk
B. Joe Biden
C. P. Diddy
D. Carlos Tavares
Check if you got it right here.